Kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, one of his sons, and other drug lords were reportedly arrested as a result of the U.S. surreptitiously flying unarmed drones from Mexican airfields to spy on drug cartels, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.
According to the officials, the flights, which were run by the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security at the request of the Mexican military, have also yielded crucial information for significant drug seizures.
According to sources, the drones provide police on both sides of the border with surveillance footage of cartel smuggling operations and map out covert labs using cameras that can take a picture of a license plate from 20,000 feet above the ground.
The officials emphasized the close bilateral security collaboration between the two nations by stating that the drones, many of which are MQ-9 Reapers employed in terrorist operations worldwide, are stationed in Mexican airfields for a week or two at a time.
Instead of flying back and forth to the U.S., the drones’ Mexican base allows them to spend more time over surveillance targets in the verdant highlands of western Mexico, which are home to the biggest fentanyl smuggling groups in the world, the authorities said.
The security chief of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, a son of “El Chapo,” who is engaged in a turf war with other factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the largest drug-smuggling organizations in Mexico, was arrested last week thanks to intelligence provided by the American drones, according to Gen. Ricardo Trevilla, Mexico’s defense minister.
Although he twice escaped from prison, Mexican and U.S. officials stated that U.S. drone intelligence also resulted in the arrest of the older Guzmán, better known as “El Chapo,” in Mexico in 2013 and 2016.
Drones assisted in the 2023 search for Ovidio Guzmán, another of “El Chapo’s” sons who had inherited the drug trade from his brothers.
Since the early 2000s, when “El Chapo” made his first of two jail escapes from Mexico, American drones have been operating above Mexican airspace.
One of the most wanted individuals alive, the drug lord rose to prominence as a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel in the early 1990s and helped transform it into a global drug-trafficking powerhouse.
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