In July 2018, two drones flew over the home of a senior Mexican security official in Tecate. One of the drones apparently served the surveillance, the second aircraft crashed on the estate. Two explosives were attached to the drone, but they did not explode.

"Either the design was programmed incorrectly and the perpetrators were still learning how it works, or it was just an intimidation," says Vanda Felbab-Brown, conflict researcher at Washington think tank Brookings the SPIEGEL.

"The use of drones is a phenomenon that is increasingly common," observes the security expert. Mexican drug trafficking groups would use drones for drug smuggling and surveillance - and more recently for the transport of explosives.

The attack in Tecate is attributed to the drug cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), which is considered particularly brutal and repeatedly challenges the state. According to an analysis of the "Small Wars Journal" on the so-called Narco Drones, it was "the first documented incident in which an armed anti-trust drone was deployed offensively and in a coordinated manner with a second support drone."

En route with explosives drone and AK-47 assault rifle

Already in 2017, the Mexican police had taken four men from the environment of the cartel, who were traveling in a stolen SUV and had next to an assault rifle with a 3DR drone - with attached explosive device and a remote detonator.

CISEN warned in a 2017 report that the cartel is building its supremacy through training with international groups such as Farc, Colombia, and has taken over its "potato bombs", so-called homemade bombs that can also be transported by drone.

For drug smuggling, the remote-controlled wing devices in Mexico have been used for years. In 2015, the police secured a crashed drone in Tijuana, which had loaded three kilograms of methamphetamine. In November 2015, the US Border Guard reported the intrusion of a drone that dropped a bundle in the state of Arizona: nearly 14 pounds of marijuana.

Secretaria de Seguridad Public Municipality de Tijuana / AP

Crashed drone with meth cargo in Tijuana 2015

Few smugglers are caught: in 2017, a 25-year-old was arrested and later sentenced to 12 years in prison. He wanted to fly six kilos of metamphetamine across the border. Two years earlier, a couple had been arrested for heroin flying across the border.

Other Latin American groups are also using drones: in 2016, security forces discovered a drone in an anti-drug operation in Colombia, with which the criminals flew several loads of up to ten kilos of cocaine across the border to accomplices to Panama.

There are so far smaller quantities that are smuggled - the majority is still transported through legal border crossings. Drones complement existing alternative smuggling options such as tunnels, airplanes, submarines or catapults.

In the future also larger loads

"Smuggling by air could become an attractive alternative in the long term," believes security expert Vanda Felbab-Brown. "The cartels use off-the-shelf drones that can be ordered from Amazon, and over time, the quality of the drones and their carrying capacity will increase, so the groups will be able to transport larger quantities." The US anti-drug agency DEA warns that cartels are also hiring drone experts and experimenting with the construction of special Narcodrohnen.

The use of drones is particularly suitable where short distances or obstacles are flown over, as on the northern border of Mexico to the USA. At the southern border of Mexico to Belize and Guatemala, the border is so porous anyway that people or cars bring the cargo across the border.

Border protection against drones

"Mexican transnational criminal organizations are using drones to monitor US law enforcement activities and identify frontier weaknesses," Paul E. Knierim, deputy chief of operations at DEA, warned at a US Senate hearing in December.

The numbers of registered drone flights in individual places are increasing, but a central database does not exist. According to the DEA, around 150 Narco drones were spotted in US airspace between 2012 and 2014. The Washington Examiner According to reports, border guards registered a total of 15 drones in San Diego, California between September 2017 and October 2018. The number of unreported cases is high: the border guards would have problems seeing or hearing the small flying objects, which are flown across the border, especially at night - intercepting them is almost impossible.

Upgrading with drone defense systems

Not only narco drones, but also the risk of a terrorist attack from the air is driving forward the defense technology upgrade in the US. "Drones are a major threat to security and law enforcement agencies," says Arthur Holland Michel, the SPIEGEL founder and co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone research center at Bard College, New York. "The US has significantly stepped up its efforts to develop and implement drone countermeasures in recent years."

The US Department of Defense has invested about $ 1 billion in 2019 in the research, development, and purchase of drone defense systems, especially for foreign deployments, but also for national protection, such as terrorist attacks. In 2018, the US government also gave federal agencies the power to disable or destroy UAV drones that pose a "credible security risk." The US Department of Homeland Security also launched a program in November 2018 that rates commercial drone defense systems - according to Michel, "a clear sign" of buying intentions.

"This year's budget also includes a budget for the acquisition of US Border Guard drone defense systems, although it is not enough funding for a large program," he says. It is unclear to what extent drone defense systems are already being used at the borders. "I believe they were used, if at all, only temporarily, as part of a pilot project, test, or manufacturer product demonstration."

As security agencies analyze how to better protect themselves against possible flying intruders, the cartels also keep an eye on new tech trends. "It will be a race between drone technology and anti-drone measures," expects safety expert Vanda Felbab-Brown.