Organized crime in Latin America has found drones to be an effective and modern tactical advantage. In countries like Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Panama, criminal groups are increasingly using these aerial devices to confront security forces, transport illicit goods, and intimidate communities.
After emerging unscathed from a March 1 raid on his territorial enclave in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, notorious gang leader Jimmy Chérizier, alias “Barbecue,” threatened to use explosive-laden drones in retaliation for the attack by the authorities.
“You have used explosive-laden drones to kill me, I can use explosive-laden drones to kill anyone in the country,” the gang leader said in a video demonstrating that he had survived the operation.
Mexican criminal organizations, such as the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG), the Sinaloa Cartel, and the Familia Michoacana, have incorporated drones into their arsenals for different purposes.
“Drones serve multiple functions, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, as well as command and control in clashes between cartels, against Mexican state forces, or even against self-defense groups. They have also been used for aerial bombings, direct attacks, and propaganda or psychological warfare operations,” said Robert Bunker, founder of the Small Wars Journal, in an email exchange with InSight Crime.
The first recorded use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by non-state armed groups dates back to 2006 in southern Lebanon. At that time, Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, launched an attack against the Israeli army using three drones, each carrying an explosive payload of between 40 and 50 kilograms.
Beyond Mexico and the Middle East, criminal organizations in Colombia and Brazil have also leveraged drone technology to strengthen their operations. In Brazil, the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) uses drones to monitor and maintain control over favelas. In Colombia, dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC), also known as the ex-FARC mafia, have deployed drones in their war against the state.
Below, InSight Crime examines the main ways non-state armed actors have experimented with drones in recent years across the region:
Modern Carrier Pigeons
The first alerts and reports from authorities regarding the criminal use of drones in Latin America emerged from inside prisons.
Drones replaced pigeons that were once used to deliver messages and small parcels, offering more advantages and easy availability of goods on the black market, including weapons, drug packages, food, liquor, cell phones, and all kinds of contraband that found an airborne way into prisons.
Since 2014, authorities in Brazil have registered drones being used to smuggle prohibited items into prison facilities.
An early example was at the São José dos Campos Provisional Detention Center, where a drone carrying 250 grams of cocaine was intercepted. In 2019, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, authorities confiscated 43 drones used to smuggle four kilograms of narcotics and 68 mobile phones into a prison.
In 2023 alone, Panama’s Ministry of Public Security reported the seizure of 1,587 drones used to smuggle contraband into prisons. The country’s major prisons have experienced multiple instances of illicit arms, drugs, and cigarettes entering facilities via drones, with the government struggling to implement effective countermeasures.
Prison guards have also been involved in facilitating contraband smuggling via drones. Seven officials from Colombia’s National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario – INPEC) were prosecuted for using drones to smuggle goods into a northern Colombian prison in December 2021.
This practice has expanded from behind prison bars to beyond them. Ecuadorian police seized three drones during operations in Guayaquil and Durán in July 2023, which had a flight radius of five kilometers and could carry up to five kilograms of drugs.
Specialized Aerial Bombing Divisions
The arms race among criminal groups has reached new heights in Mexico.
The CJNG has a specialized unit dedicated to operating drones. Known as the “Drone Operators,” this military-style unit wears patches with its name and insignia, marking them as specialists in drone warfare. They showcase the capabilities of their drones via the use of videos on social media, conducting demonstrations of homemade bomb drops to intimidate rivals.
The use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) attached to drones is concentrated in the states of Michoacán, Chihuahua, and Guanajuato, according to a recent InSight Crime investigation. The intense criminal competition, coupled with attacks on security forces, has pushed organizations to increasingly rely on these explosives.
The CJNG began using explosive drones in Michoacán in around 2020, deploying them against rival groups and local communities. Over time, this tactic spread to Guerrero, where the Familia Michoacana has used the airborne weapons to consolidate territorial control and expand influence.
In Guerrero, the criminal group has caused widespread destruction and displacement via drone attacks. In May 2023, two people were killed in the municipality of Heliodoro Castillo, and some 600 were displaced.
“There is a preference for using military-grade explosives, specifically grenades, when available. But since grenades are not widely proliferated in the regional illegal arms market, there is also a significant use of improvised explosive devices,” Andrei Serbin Pont, researcher and director of the Latin American think tank Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (CRIES), told InSight Crime.
Additionally, Mexican criminal groups have sought expertise from former Colombian military personnel to enhance and professionalize the adaptation of explosives to drones.
Mexican authorities arrested Elkin Pérez Loaiza, alias “El Tigre,” a former Colombian soldier training the criminal group the Viagras in the manufacture of improvised explosives, in September 2024.
In a separate case, eight Colombians were detained in September 2023, accused of manufacturing drone-borne explosives for the Viagras in Michoacán. The official report stated that the suspects operated a clandestine workshop where they modified explosive devices to be air-dropped via drones.
In Colombia, factions of the ex-FARC mafia have integrated drones into their arsenal. In departments like Cauca and Nariño, in western Colombia, drone attacks targeting army personnel and infrastructure have become more frequent.
Spreading Terror
Chemical weapons, which gained notoriety during World War I due to their high lethality, have re-emerged as a new method of psychological warfare in Mexico. Criminal groups have begun using them to instill terror, combining them with drone technology to amplify their impact.
In April 2024, the CJNG intensified its attacks in Michoacán, deploying drones to drop explosive devices filled with chemical substances. Affected residents said that the bombs emitted gases that caused respiratory distress.
The adoption of drones for the dispersal of chemical agents by criminal groups in Mexico represents a disturbing escalation in violence, with direct consequences for civilians. The use of toxic gases, internationally classified as weapons of mass destruction, underscores a growing level of sophistication, potentially paving the way for even more lethal and challenging tactics in the future.
With commercially available drones that can be easily modified to carry different types of explosives, their spread across the region remains a looming threat.
Criminal groups in Latin America are increasingly experimenting, drawing inspiration from technological advancements seen in conflicts like Ukraine. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have refined the use of kamikaze drones and AI-guided explosive drones, setting a precedent for criminal innovation in the region.