Drones are becoming organized crime’s weapon of choice in Latin America. Governments are struggling to keep up

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As some 2,500 heavily armed police officers, soldiers and snipers entered through a maze of narrow streets, intense gunfire could be heard all around. The scene reached its climax when a bomb targeting the security forces was seen falling from the sky, according to footage from the raid last October.

The clip could have been from a war zone, but it happened on the hillsides of Rio de Janeiro, a favorite destination for millions of tourists.

The so-called “Operation Containment,” in the favelas of Rio’s Complexo da Penha and Complexo do Alemão, pitted security forces against the networks of one of Brazil’s largest criminal organizations, Comando Vermelho (CV). It left dozens dead and the falling bomb highlighted a concerning phenomenon: the growing use of drones by organized crime.

A report by the nongovernmental organization Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) highlights that drone technology is expanding rapidly both within and across borders in Latin America. The report recorded “around 670 armed-drone events since 2018, but more than 72% of these events occurred between January 1, 2025, and August 21, 2026.”

In Mexico, a recent wave of attacks involving drones equipped with explosives put authorities on alert. Both Mexico’s Navy and Defense Ministry confirmed to CNN an increase in drone seizures over the past year. In Colombia, the newly inaugurated president faces the growing challenge posed by armed groups, which also use drones in their attacks. Their evolution and advance are accelerating as security forces try to catch up.

The first uses of drones for criminal purposes in Latin America were recorded in prisons, mainly in Brazil. “Drones replaced the pigeons that were previously used to deliver messages and small packages, offering greater advantages and easy access to goods on the black market, including weapons, packages of drugs, food, liquor, cellphones and all kinds of contraband that found an aerial route into prisons,” says InSight Crime, a website specializing in investigations into organized crime. Drones attempting to smuggle prohibited goods into prisons have been recorded since 2014.

But over the past decade, they have become a standard tool in the criminal world. Paddy Ginn, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), notes that their current use falls into five categories: surveillance, logistics, attack, signaling and coordination.

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US military uses laser to down three Mexican cartel drones near border

“We are seeing a clear transition from the experimental use of drones by criminal groups toward structured and repeatable operational use,” Ginn says. Like other experts consulted by CNN, he says this evolution is most evident – and of greatest concern – in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, while Guatemala is seeing “emerging use linked to cross-border cartel conflicts, and Venezuela is showing early indicators through seizures and possession cases.”

“In Mexico, cartels have been using drones for attacks for at least five or six years,” Ginn says. “Criminal groups now use drones to monitor police patrols, drop improvised explosive devices on rivals or security forces, and support migrant-smuggling operations along the US border.”

Ginn highlights that the use of drones for these purposes has grown not only in frequency but also in sophistication. “Few innovations have spread through conflicts and organized crime as quickly as drones.”

David Mora, a senior analyst specializing in Mexico for the NGO Crisis Group, shares this view. “There has certainly been an increase in Mexico. From small drones used for surveillance, which is highly effective for criminal groups, to larger and more sophisticated drones with greater payload capacity, to which explosives are attached.”

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What concerns experts most is how easily these devices can be acquired: they can essentially be purchased online. “They adapt commercial drones, such as those used to deliver packages, to carry explosives. Some have extremely high payload capacities. And although they do not have much range, that is also changing,” Mora explains.

Another use of these drones is for trafficking, allegedly across the Mexico-US border. In fact, the Trump administration has been investing in technology to combat this problem, although Mexican officials have played it down. The most recent sign of the US push against drones is the announcement that its forces used a laser system for the first time last week to shoot down three drones allegedly linked to Mexican drug cartels that were flying near the Texas-Mexico border.

But Mora emphasizes that the largest number of drone reports come from within Mexico, particularly in the state of Sinaloa, amid the internal struggles of the powerful cartel that operates there. “There are also many reports in Michoacán, where, as in Sinaloa, they are used more for territorial control and clashes between groups.” In Tamaulipas, where there is also a certain concentration of drone activity, it is more likely related to surveillance because it is a border state, Mora says.

InSight Crime also identifies the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Guanajuato as areas where drone operations have increased. It also notes that Mexican criminal groups “have sought the expertise of former Colombian military personnel to improve and professionalize the process of attaching explosives to drones.”

In addition to sharing that expertise with Mexican cartels, the use of drones in Colombia has also become commonplace among FARC dissident groups.

Seven Colombian soldiers killed in guerrilla attack with drones and explosives, military says

ACLED notes that Colombia has become the epicenter of drone warfare. “Here, the use of armed drones is spreading most rapidly: 97 of the 182 municipalities where ACLED records events involving armed drones across the Latin American region are in Colombia, concentrated mainly in Cauca, but with a marked spread into Norte de Santander, Antioquia, Chocó, Nariño, and Bolívar.” The NGO explains that most of these events occur in rural towns “located near coca-growing enclaves or drug trafficking corridors.”

InSight Crime notes that, in Colombia’s Catatumbo region, guerrilla units of the National Liberation Army (ELN) “are equipping drones with thermal imaging sensor technology to improve round-the-clock surveillance capabilities.” The report added that “Coordinated ‘swarm’ attacks and drones flying over communities serve as weapons of psychological intimidation to control territory and undermine public confidence in state security forces.”

As already mentioned, Brazil pioneered the use of drones for smuggling between prisons, but more recently, groups have also turned to using them as tools to drop explosives and monitor police movements.

The experts consulted by CNN agree that, so far, there have been no reports in the region of organized crime using kamikaze drones, devices that have been reported, for example, on the battlefront between Ukraine and Russia.

In many of the Latin American countries that have seen high use of drones by criminal groups, governments are investing in countering them.

In Brazil, for example, the Rio Civil Police launched the Coordenadoria de Operações com Aeronaves Não Tripuladas (Coordination of Operations with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – COANT), “incorporating drones into intelligence and police operations for real-time mapping and operational monitoring,” Insight Crime reports .

In Mexico, before the recent use of lasers to shoot down drones, US Ambassador Ronald D. Johnson had announced an agreement between the two countries to strengthen “strategic and operational capabilities through defense innovation and new technologies.”

Johnson said this would allow Mexico “to access the United States Army’s digital marketplace to acquire unmanned aerial systems and counter-unmanned aircraft systems at competitive costs,” to strengthen its ability “to combat the cartels and address our shared security challenges.” US

Last Friday, Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, Mexico’s Secretary of National Defense, referred to the counter-drone technology being used by security forces during a press conference. “We have deployed 165 counter-drone systems along the northern border, and we are achieving good results with them,” he said.

In Colombia, President Abelardo de la Espriella agreed with the US to loan three MQ-9A Reaper drones to monitor drug-trafficking corridors and carry out potential precision strikes against targets of high strategic value with the corresponding authorizations, according to a Colombian Defense Ministry source who confirmed the information to CNN.

Paddy Ginn, of GI TOC, notes that some agencies are adapting quickly, “particularly where drone use has already become operationally significant.” He says that Brazilian law enforcement “has demonstrated success in dismantling prison drone networks, and Colombian security forces increasingly recognize drones as part of the threat environment in conflict-affected regions.”

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He also says that Mexico has increased “seizures and public reporting of drone-delivered improvised explosive devices, indicating growing awareness of the problem.”

“However, overall preparedness remains uneven. Criminal innovation often moves faster than regulatory adaptation, especially when technologies are inexpensive and widely available,” Ginn says.

The expert emphasizes that the main problem is that “drones narrow the gap between criminal and military methods.” He points to the war in Ukraine, in which Russian and Ukrainian forces have deployed drones to strike targets.

“The conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated how effective relatively simple drone systems can be when combined with rapid adaptation and distributed learning networks,” he says. “Criminal groups are paying attention to this. They are not necessarily importing military hardware, but they are learning from the tactics and techniques being demonstrated in Ukraine.”

Experts like Ginn note that the spread of drone use across the region is a real threat for the region as criminal groups draw inspiration from foreign conflicts . “Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have perfected the use of kamikaze drones and AI-guided explosive drones, setting a precedent for criminal innovation in the (Latin American) region,” says a report by InSight Crime.

Ginn has compared the drone to what the Kalashnikov rifle (AK) once was, considering how both have become commonly used, low-cost “weapons” with high lethal power. “However, if the international arms control system has struggled to curb the proliferation of AK-type weapons, it seems even less equipped to address the rise of drone technology,” Ginn writes in an article shared on GI-TOC’s website.

Compounding the difficulty of controlling the acquisition of drones by organized crime groups is the fact that some security forces have adopted them as weapons. In both cases, civilians have much to lose.

The clearest example is Haiti, where, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, “at least 1,243 people were killed by drone strikes in 141 operations (by security forces) between March 1, 2025, and January 21, 2026, including at least 43 adults who were reportedly not members of criminal groups, and 17 children.”

The country, severely affected by gangs and a serious humanitarian crisis, has spent years trying to contain crime without much success. And unlike in other countries in the region, gangs here operate while embedded among the civilian population, including in Port-au-Prince, the capital.

Guerinault Louis/Anadolu/Getty Images

“Haiti demonstrates both the potential and the risks of deploying police drones in highly contested environments,” says Ginn of GI-TOC, who believes it poses an enormous challenge for security forces that criminal groups can “adapt by embedding themselves more deeply within civilian areas, increasing the complexity of strike decisions.”

The testimonies collected by HRW are chilling. One is from a woman whose 6-year-old daughter was killed in one of the security forces’ attacks on the gangs. She says she briefly went out to buy food while her daughter played nearby: “When I got near the vendor, I heard an explosion. It was chaos, people were mutilated, there were noises everywhere.… It was full of children. Many people were dead.”

A report published in 2025 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says that drone attacks “fall disproportionately on civilians.” “The result is a climate of fear and confusion among local communities and has likely played a far from insignificant role in displacing more than 54,000 people from their homes in Catatumbo,” in Colombia, CSIS says by way of example.

Mora of Crisis Group also notes that drones serve as weapons of intimidation against the population. “There are areas of Mexico where any buzzing sound puts people on edge,” says the Crisis Group expert.

So, what can governments do?

“There is no single solution,” says Ginn. “Effective responses require a combination of regulation, detection, interdiction, intelligence, and system-wide cooperation.”

“The key point is that drones should not be treated as a purely technical problem. They are part of a broader process of criminal innovation, and responses must reflect that broader context,” Ginn emphasizes.

CNN’s Mauricio Torres, Jhasua Razo, and Fernando Ramos contributed to this report

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这是西班牙语文章

大约2500名全副武装的警察、士兵和狙击手穿过迷宫般的狭窄街道进入目标区域，四周枪声密集。根据去年10月突袭行动的录像显示，当一枚瞄准安全部队的炸弹从天而降时，场面达到了高潮。

这段视频看起来像是来自战区，但实际上它发生在里约热内卢的山坡上，而里约热内卢是数百万游客最喜爱的旅游目的地。

在里约热内卢的佩尼亚贫民窟和阿莱芒贫民窟，所谓的“遏制行动”使安全部队与巴西最大的犯罪组织之一——红色司令部（CV）的犯罪网络展开了激烈的对抗。行动造成数十人死亡，而那枚落下的炸弹也凸显了一个令人担忧的现象：有组织犯罪越来越多地使用无人机。

非政府组织“武装冲突地点与事件数据项目”（ACLED）的一份报告指出，无人机技术在拉丁美洲境内外均迅速发展。该报告记录了“自2018年以来发生的约670起武装无人机事件，但其中超过72%的事件发生在2025年1月1日至2026年8月21日之间。”

在墨西哥，近期一系列使用携带爆炸物的无人机发动的袭击令当局高度警惕。墨西哥海军和国防部均向CNN证实，过去一年缴获的无人机数量有所增加。在哥伦比亚，新任总统面临着武装团体日益严峻的挑战，这些团体也使用无人机发动袭击。随着安全部队努力追赶，这些武装团体的行动和发展速度正在加快。

拉丁美洲首次将无人机用于犯罪活动是在监狱，主要发生在巴西。“无人机取代了之前用于传递信息和小包裹的信鸽，为黑市商品提供了更大的便利，包括武器、毒品包裹、食品、酒类、手机以及各种违禁品，这些违禁品通过空中途径进入监狱，”专门调查有组织犯罪的网站InSight Crime指出。自2014年以来，已有无人机试图向监狱走私违禁品的记录。

但在过去十年里，它们已成为犯罪世界的常用工具。打击跨国有组织犯罪全球倡议组织（GI-TOC）的高级专家帕迪·金恩指出，它们目前的用途可分为五类：监视、后勤、攻击、信号传递和协调。

Reginald Mathalone/NurPhoto/Getty Images

美国军方使用激光击落边境附近的3架墨西哥贩毒集团无人机

“我们看到犯罪集团对无人机的使用正从实验性使用逐渐过渡到结构化、可重复的作战性使用，”金恩说道。与其他接受CNN采访的专家一样，他表示，这种演变在墨西哥、哥伦比亚和巴西最为明显，也最令人担忧；危地马拉的无人机使用正与跨境贩毒集团冲突有关；委内瑞拉则通过查获和持有无人机案件显示出早期迹象。

金恩说：“在墨西哥，贩毒集团使用无人机发动袭击至少已有五六年了。现在，犯罪集团利用无人机监视警察巡逻，向对手或安全部队投放简易爆炸装置，并支持沿美国边境的偷渡活动。”

金恩强调，无人机用于这些目的的频率不仅增加，而且技术也日趋成熟。“很少有创新能像无人机一样，如此迅速地在冲突和有组织犯罪中传播开来。”

非政府组织“危机组织”专门负责墨西哥问题的资深分析师大卫·莫拉也认同这一观点。“墨西哥的无人机数量确实有所增加。从最初用于监视的小型无人机（这种无人机对犯罪集团来说非常有效），到如今更大、更先进、有效载荷更大的无人机（这些无人机上可能还挂载着炸药）。”

David Peinado/picture alliance/Getty Images

专家们最担心的是这些设备的获取难度：它们基本上可以在网上买到。“他们改装商用无人机，比如用来运送包裹的无人机，用来携带爆炸物。有些无人机的有效载荷能力极高。虽然它们的航程目前还不长，但这种情况也在改变，”莫拉解释道。

这些无人机的另一个用途是贩运毒品，据称是越过美墨边境。事实上，特朗普政府一直在投资相关技术以打击这一问题，尽管墨西哥官员对此轻描淡写。美国打击无人机的最新迹象是，上周美国宣布其部队首次使用激光系统击落了三架据称与墨西哥贩毒集团有关的无人机，这些无人机当时正在德克萨斯州与墨西哥边境附近飞行。

但莫拉强调，无人机报告数量最多的是墨西哥境内，尤其是在锡那罗亚州，那里强大的贩毒集团内部斗争激烈。“米却肯州也有很多报告，和锡那罗亚州一样，无人机更多地被用于争夺地盘和帮派冲突。”莫拉说，塔毛利帕斯州的无人机活动也比较集中，由于该州是边境州，无人机活动更可能与监视有关。

InSight Crime 还指出，墨西哥奇瓦瓦州和瓜纳华托州是无人机行动日益增多的地区。报告还指出，墨西哥犯罪集团“寻求哥伦比亚前军方人员的专业知识，以改进和规范在无人机上安装炸药的流程”。

除了与墨西哥贩毒集团分享这些专业知识外，在哥伦比亚，无人机的使用在哥伦比亚革命武装力量（FARC）的异议团体中也变得司空见惯。

哥伦比亚军方称，七名哥伦比亚士兵在游击队使用无人机和爆炸物发动的袭击中丧生。

ACLED指出，哥伦比亚已成为无人机战争的中心。“武装无人机的使用在这里蔓延最为迅速：在ACLED记录的拉丁美洲地区182个涉及武装无人机的事件中，有97个发生在哥伦比亚，主要集中在考卡省，但也明显蔓延至北桑坦德省、安蒂奥基亚省、乔科省、纳里尼奥省和玻利瓦尔省。”该非政府组织解释说，这些事件大多发生在“靠近古柯种植区或毒品走私通道”的农村城镇。

InSight Crime指出，在哥伦比亚卡塔通博地区，民族解放军（ELN）的游击队“正在为无人机配备热成像传感器技术，以提高全天候监控能力”。该报告还补充说，“协同‘集群’攻击和无人机飞越社区，被用作心理恐吓武器，以控制领土并削弱公众对国家安全部队的信任。”

正如前面提到的，巴西率先使用无人机在监狱之间进行走私，但最近，一些组织也开始使用无人机作为投放爆炸物和监视警察行动的工具。

CNN咨询的专家一致认为，到目前为止，该地区还没有有组织犯罪使用自杀式无人机的报道，而据报道，这种装置曾在乌克兰和俄罗斯的战场上出现过。

在许多拉丁美洲国家，犯罪集团大量使用无人机，各国政府都在加大投入以打击无人机犯罪。

例如，在巴西，里约民警启动了 Coordenadoria de Operações com Aeronaves Não Tripuladas（无人机行动协调 - COANT），“将无人机纳入情报和警察行动中，以进行实时测绘和行动监控”，Insight Crime 报道。

在墨西哥，在最近使用激光击落无人机之前，美国大使罗纳德·D·约翰逊曾宣布两国达成协议，通过国防创新和新技术加强“战略和作战能力”。

约翰逊表示，这将使墨西哥“能够进入美国陆军的数字市场，以具有竞争力的价格采购无人机系统和反无人机系统”，从而增强其“打击贩毒集团和应对我们共同的安全挑战”的能力。

上周五，墨西哥国防部长里卡多·特雷维拉·特雷霍在新闻发布会上谈到了安全部队正在使用的反无人机技术。他说：“我们已在北部边境部署了165套反无人机系统，并且取得了良好的效果。”

据哥伦比亚国防部一位消息人士向 CNN 证实，哥伦比亚总统阿韦拉多·德拉埃斯普里利亚已与美国达成协议，向哥伦比亚出借三架 MQ-9A“死神”无人机，用于监控毒品走私通道，并在获得相应授权后对具有高战略价值的目标进行潜在的精确打击。

GI TOC的帕迪·金恩指出，一些机构正在迅速适应，“尤其是在无人机的使用已经具有重要作战意义的地区”。他表示，巴西执法部门“已成功拆除监狱无人机网络，而哥伦比亚安全部队也日益认识到，无人机是受冲突影响地区威胁环境的一部分”。

Schneyder Mendoza/AFP/Getty Images

他还表示，墨西哥“查获并公开报告了无人机投放的简易爆炸装置，这表明人们对这一问题的认识正在不断提高”。

“然而，整体防范力度仍然参差不齐。犯罪创新往往比监管调整更快，尤其是在技术成本低廉且广泛应用的情况下，”金恩说。

这位专家强调，主要问题在于“无人机缩小了犯罪手段和军事手段之间的差距”。他以乌克兰战争为例，指出俄罗斯和乌克兰军队都曾部署无人机袭击目标。

“乌克兰冲突表明，相对简单的无人机系统如果与快速适应和分布式学习网络相结合，就能发挥多么强大的作用，”他说。“犯罪集团正在密切关注这一点。他们未必会进口军事装备，但他们正在学习乌克兰展示的战术和技术。”

像金恩这样的专家指出，无人机在该地区蔓延使用对该地区构成真正的威胁，因为犯罪集团会从外国冲突中汲取灵感。“俄罗斯和乌克兰军队都已完善了自杀式无人机和人工智能制导爆炸无人机的使用，为（拉丁美洲）地区的犯罪创新树立了先例，”InSight Crime 的一份报告指出。

金恩将无人机比作卡拉什尼科夫步枪（AK），因为两者都已成为广泛使用、成本低廉且杀伤力极高的“武器”。金恩在GI-TOC网站上发表的一篇文章中写道：“然而，如果说国际军控体系在遏制AK类武器扩散方面举步维艰，那么在应对无人机技术的崛起方面，它似乎更加力不从心。”

控制有组织犯罪集团获取无人机的难度雪上加霜，一些安全部队也已将无人机用作武器。无论哪种情况，平民百姓都将蒙受巨大损失。

最明显的例子是海地，根据人权观察组织 (HRW) 的一份报告，“在 2025 年 3 月 1 日至 2026 年 1 月 21 日期间，安全部队发动了 141 次无人机袭击，造成至少 1243 人死亡，其中包括至少 43 名据称不是犯罪集团成员的成年人和 17 名儿童。”

这个国家深受帮派活动和严重的人道主义危机之苦，多年来一直试图遏制犯罪，但收效甚微。与该地区其他国家不同，这里的帮派活动渗透到平民阶层中，甚至在首都太子港也是如此。

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“海地展现了在高度对抗的环境中部署警用无人机的潜力和风险，”GI-TOC 的金恩说道。他认为，犯罪集团可以通过“更深入地融入平民区来适应，从而增加打击决策的复杂性”，这对安全部队构成了巨大的挑战。

人权观察组织收集的证词令人不寒而栗。其中一位母亲的证词显示，她6岁的女儿在安全部队对帮派的一次袭击中丧生。她说，当时她出去买东西，女儿在附近玩耍：“我走到摊位附近时，听到一声爆炸。现场一片混乱，人们伤痕累累，到处都是嘈杂的声音……摊位上挤满了孩子。许多人都死了。”

战略与国际研究中心（CSIS）2025年发布的一份报告指出，无人机袭击“不成比例地落在平民身上”。CSIS以哥伦比亚卡塔通博为例指出，“其结果是在当地社区中造成了恐惧和混乱的气氛，并且很可能在导致超过54000人流离失所方面发挥了相当大的作用”。

危机组织的莫拉也指出，无人机被用作恐吓民众的武器。“在墨西哥的一些地区，任何嗡嗡声都会让人们感到不安，”这位危机组织专家说。

那么，各国政府可以做些什么呢？

金恩表示：“没有单一的解决方案。有效的应对措施需要监管、侦查、拦截、情报和系统性合作等多种手段相结合。”

“关键在于，无人机不应被视为纯粹的技术问题。它们是犯罪创新这一更广泛进程的一部分，应对措施必须反映出这一更广泛的背景，”金恩强调说。

CNN 的 Mauricio Torres、Jhasua Razo 和 Fernando Ramos 对本报告做出了贡献