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REPORT: Drones are re-shaping armed group warfare in Latin America · ACLED Audio

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Drones are reshaping armed group warfare in Latin America.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Executive Summary.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Drones have evolved from peripheral smuggling tools into a core capability of Latin America's armed groups and criminal organizations.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Colombia has become the region's laboratory for weaponized drone innovation.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Here, the National Liberation Army and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FRK, dissident factions, have been fielding fiber optic guided munitions that have already made security forces' efforts to cope with this threat obsolete.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: In Mexico, where the use of weaponized drones was first recorded, they have become a key component of war tactics and territorial surveillance.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the issue is no longer confined to these two epicenters.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Ecuador and Brazil are emerging as new frontiers, where organized crime groups are increasingly resorting to using drones to target adversaries in prisons and urban communities.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: The current trajectory points toward faster, cheaper, and more lethal diffusion.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Rapidly spreading know-how, coupled with falling hardware costs and porous regulation, will likely accelerate the spread of advanced drone tactics into new territories, outpacing state counter-drone investment and complicating security responses across the hemisphere.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Colombia leads in the use of weaponized drones, but new conflict hotspots are emerging.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Drone technology is spreading quickly both within and across borders in Latin America.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: ACLED records around 670 events of weaponized drones since 2018, but over 72% of these events have occurred between January 1, 2025 and August 21, 2026.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Colombia, in particular, has become the epicenter of drone warfare.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Here, the use of weaponized drones is spreading the fastest.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: 97 of the 182 municipalities where Accled records events involving weaponized drones in the whole Latin America region are in Colombia, mostly concentrated in Cauca, but with a stark diffusion in Norte de Santander, Antioquia, Chocó, Nariño, and Bolívar.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Refer to the maps in the report for details.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Most of these events occur in rural towns located near coca crop enclaves or drug trafficking corridors.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Two reasons explain this expansion.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, an increasing number of armed groups have been using drones to attack security forces, which is the most common way in which drones are used.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Colombia's decades-long conflict has left the state with a dense, dispersed network of fixed military barracks and police stations in rural areas where armed groups operate, leaving the troops stationed there vulnerable to drone attacks.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, drones are becoming embedded in a growing number of sub-regional conflicts between a wide array of organized crime and rebel groups in a sort of domino effect.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: When one group starts using drones in a conflict, its rival will start using them in another conflict setting with a different rival.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: This helps to explain why the number of armed groups using weaponized drones has increased from five in 2024 to 19 so far in 2026.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: In Mexico, armed groups began using drones around a decade ago as a tool to diversify cross-border drug smuggling.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: However, the use of drones has since evolved.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: ACLED records events involving weaponized drones in 17 of the country's 32 federal entities between 2021 and August 21, 2026.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, in contrast to the continual geographic dispersion observed in Colombia, after a significant expansion in 2024, drone use has remained mostly concentrated in the states of Michoacán, Guerrero, and Sinaloa, refer to the map in the report for details.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the states where conflicts between armed factions are most violent.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Compared with Colombia, in fact, Mexican organized crime groups, particularly the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, CJNG, La Familia Michoacana Cartel, and Los Viagras Gang, predominantly use drones to attack local populations in rivals' territories, rather than targeting security forces.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond these two hotspots, the use of weaponized drones has also expanded to Ecuador, Brazil, and, very recently, Venezuela.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Ecuador records eight events of this kind since 2023, most of which targeted prison wings where gang leaders were held.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: In 2026, these included attacks directed at a prison director and a private house, hinting at a change in organized crime groups' targeting strategy.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, ACLED records the first event of violence involving weaponized drones in Brazil in June 2025.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Refer to the map in the report for details.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the 15 other events ACLED records since then regard Red Command's attacks on rival police militias in Rio de Janeiro's Northwest and Southwest communities, but also in Sierra.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: In August 2026, ACLED records the first use of a weaponized drone against civilians in Venezuela, when Colombian FARC dissidents dropped explosives from drones to intimidate a group of JV indigenous people who were looking for their local community leader.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: The same dissidents had abducted and later killed the leader.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Armed groups are becoming creative in the way they source, equip, and use drones.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond combat, armed groups exploit drones in at least two other ways.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: First, in terms of logistics, drones have displaced human couriers as the primary contraband vector and are now a preferred method for smuggling drugs, phones, and weapons into prisons, mostly in Brazil and Ecuador, where authorities have intercepted 600 drones linked to gangs en route to the El Encuentro prison facility.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: But they can be used to smuggle drugs across borders too, as in the case of Mexico, where nearly 35,000 drone flights were detected near the U.S.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: border in 2025 alone.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, armed groups use drones for surveillance and territorial control to monitor rival incursions, track security force movements, and protect illicit infrastructure such as clandestine airstrips, illegal mining sites, and coca fields.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Armed groups have also been diversifying the ways in which they obtain and equip drones.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Most are still commercial drones that have been artisanally equipped to carry objects and explosives, which limits their precision and lethality, so far leading to roughly one death in every three events.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: But in Colombia, ELN and FARC dissidents have been using drones with night vision cameras and fiber optic drones that resist radio frequency jamming.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: These drones are used in trench warfare between Russia and Ukraine.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Many Colombians have temporarily joined Ukraine in the war, where they have been learning drone tactics before bringing them back home.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: In some parts of Mexico and Colombia, particularly Michoacan and Cauca, armed groups have set up laboratories for manufacturing explosives and adapting drones to carry them.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Some groups have even developed their own manufacturing centers.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: In September 2025, Venezuelan military forces destroyed a lab for manufacturing drones and explosive devices in Cacigua El Cubo, Zulia, where they found eight 3D printers and 1,232 devices for manufacturing drones, among other items.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Outlook, technological innovation, access to global networks, and low barriers to entry will drive drone-related conflict.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Over the next 12 to 24 months, criminal and insurgent drone use in Latin America is likely to intensify in scale and sophistication.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: For now, the state's current counter-drone capacity is focused on reconnaissance and signal jamming, and greater use of technologies such as fiber optic drones will strain the state's capacity and increase effective drone use.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Further geographic spread of drone activity is likely in Colombia, where the new government has announced an all-out offensive against armed groups, who will likely use drones to resist it, as well as Brazil, where the Red Command's use of drones is likely to be expanded from Rio to other states in which it disputes territory with rivals, such as Mato Grosso do Sul, Bahia, and Minas Jedice.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Key factors shaping the growing threat of drone use in Latin America.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: The spread of know-how.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: The use of weaponized drones in an increasing number of conflict settings will continue to force groups that find themselves at a tactical disadvantage to close that gap and start using drones themselves.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Technological innovations that have been introduced in other active conflicts with high use of drones, such as Ukraine and the Middle East, are also likely to be reflected in the Latin American context, thanks to armed groups, global networks tied to drug trafficking and money laundering activities.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Any such innovations should first be expected in Colombia before dispersing to other locations.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Low costs, in-house manufacturing, and technological development.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Low-cost commercial drones from as little as$600 will continue to outpace expensive state countermeasures.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is particularly true if armed groups continue expanding their capabilities to manufacture their own devices, particularly in remote areas along the border between Colombia and Venezuela.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Rising civilian risk from deployment in urban spaces.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: An increased use of drones in populated and penitentiary settings raises the risk of bystander casualties and fatalities, particularly in densely populated suburbs in Brazil.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: This report was written by ACLED's Latin America and the Caribbean Analyst.