Mexican soldiers already lost their lives to weaponized drones controlled by the cartels, indirectly funded by the EU.
By Zolta GYŐRI
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Mexican intelligence services warned Ukraine earlier this summer that Mexican volunteers had joined the International Legion not out of solidarity, but to acquire advanced combat drone training for the benefit of drug cartels back home, according to a July report by the French outlet Intelligence Online.
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), together with military intelligence, has launched investigations into several Spanish-speaking units of the Legion to identify alleged cartel members from Mexico and Colombia. These individuals reportedly used private security companies in Latin America to reach the front, including at least three former members of the Colombian FARC, who infiltrated with Panamanian and Venezuelan papers.
According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report, cartel-linked fighters were especially focused on learning the latest tactics for using FPV (first-person view) drones in combat. “We welcomed them in good faith, but we realized Ukraine had become the epicenter of global FPV tactics. Some only come here to learn how to kill with a $400 drone, then take that knowledge elsewhere,” an SBU officer said.
Drone warfare experts confirm the attraction. “There’s no substitute for combat experience,” one analyst reported. “If a cartel sends fifty men and twenty return with battlefield knowledge, that’s already a major gain.”
Cartels first experimented with commercial drones for smuggling in the early 2010s, particularly after Chinese manufacturer DJI released its Phantom model in 2013. Cheap and accessible, drones were used to drop contraband into prisons and later to ferry drugs over the U.S.-Mexico border. Between 2012 and 2014, U.S. authorities recorded around 150 smuggling drones, with experts saying by 2020 the real number could have climbed to over 1,000.
By 2024, U.S. officials were reporting tens of thousands of incursions. General Gregory M. Guillot of U.S. Northern Command estimated “thousands” of border crossings per month. In July testimony to the Senate, Homeland Security official Steven Willoughby revealed that in the first six months of 2024 alone, over 27,000 drone flights were detected near the border.
Yet smuggling soon gave way to weaponization. The first armed drone seizure came in 2017, when police discovered a modified quadcopter fitted with explosives. Michoacán, a key corridor for South American narcotics, has become the epicenter of cartel drone warfare, with CJNG pioneering bomb-equipped drones in battles against rival cartels, vigilante groups, and Mexican security forces. Last August, the defense minister admitted for the first time that soldiers had been killed in drone strikes.
This puts into perspective the spending of the EU funding many of these programs. Brussels has poured millions into the training of drone operators and advancing weaponized drone technology that seems to be ending up in the wrong hands, claiming lives in far away conflict zones.
Original article: The European Conservative
