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What hundreds of videos reveal about how cartels use drones · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: In this video, a drone flying over Mexico was looking
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: into Texas. The operator is surveilling this U.S. Border Patrol
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: vehicle as it chases a fleeing car. You can tell
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: it's Border Patrol by the green stripe on the side,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and you can hear the operator appearing to give directions
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  Speaker 1: to the driver of the fleeing vehicle. The car then
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  Speaker 1: turns down a dirt road where another Border Patrol.
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  Speaker 2: Truck is parked.
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  Speaker 1: That chase happened here. Just feet away, we can see
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  Speaker 1: the water they're racing to, the Rio Grande. And beyond it, Mexico.
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  Speaker 1: Drones are changing the ways cartels and criminal groups operate.
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  Speaker 1: Drones have become a crucial tool for them to carry
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  Speaker 1: out operations. Everything from surveilling U.S. law enforcement to coordinating
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  Speaker 1: smuggling movements live from above.
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  Speaker 2: The U.S.
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  Speaker 1: Military has had to use lasers to shoot down Mexican
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  Speaker 1: drug cartel drones at the border. And inside of Mexico,
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  Speaker 1: they're contributing to even more militarized cartel operations, using drones
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: carrying homemade bombs to attack rival groups. CNN reviewed hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of videos like these, all posted to social media.
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  Speaker 2: We obtained state.
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  Speaker 1: Data and visited a Texas border town facing some of
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  Speaker 1: the heaviest use of drones by the nearby cartel to
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  Speaker 1: see what, if anything, law enforcement can do to stop it.
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  Speaker 1: Many of the drone videos we reviewed looked like this one,
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  Speaker 1: capturing what appears to be an illegal crossing of the border.
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  Speaker 1: Drone flying inside Mexico is monitoring a group of people
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  Speaker 1: running up from the Rio Grande into a getaway car
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  Speaker 1: in the U.S. The car pulls up at the exact
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  Speaker 1: moment the group reaches the dirt road, and within a
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  Speaker 1: matter of seconds, the car takes off.
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  Speaker 2: That video happened right here.
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  Speaker 1: We geolocated it to the city of Laredo, Texas. We
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  Speaker 1: came to visit the location and within seconds of arriving,
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  Speaker 1: we briefly spot a drone flying overhead.
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  Speaker 2: You see it?
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  Speaker 1: This is the path that people came up in that
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  Speaker 1: video that you just saw. The river is behind me
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  Speaker 1: and Mexico is just on the other side. Current and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: former law enforcement officials as well as experts, they all
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  Speaker 1: say when there are hundreds of drone detections in an
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  Speaker 1: area like this, the conclusion they draw is that it
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  Speaker 1: is to smuggle people or drugs. Data we obtained from
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  Speaker 1: the Texas Department of Public Safety shows that since 2021,
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  Speaker 1: there have been thousands of drone detections in the area
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  Speaker 1: just across the river from us. The data does include
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  Speaker 1: drone flights for legal purposes, too, but large clusters of
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  Speaker 1: flights above known smuggling paths like these can point to
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  Speaker 1: illegal activity. And it's not just in this area. It's
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  Speaker 1: all along the border in Laredo, where in a three-year
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  Speaker 1: period alone, drone detections on the Mexico side went up
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  Speaker 1: more than 600 percent.
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  Speaker 2: According to a CNN analysis.
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  Speaker 1: The drones that cartels and criminal groups are flying each
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  Speaker 1: day can see deep into the United States. And one
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  Speaker 1: video we reviewed shows you just how far. You can
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  Speaker 1: see the location of the drone in the bottom left
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  Speaker 1: of the screen. It's here a mile from the border,
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  Speaker 1: being used to monitor this Border Patrol truck that we geolocated.
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  Speaker 2: Three miles away. So we're going to go talk to
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  Speaker 2: Chief Tubbs.
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  Speaker 1: He's with the Webb County Sheriff's Office to understand what
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  Speaker 1: challenges they're facing as this has become an increasing reality
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  Speaker 1: for those along the border.
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  Speaker 2: Hi, how are you?
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  Speaker 1: Nice to meet you. Thanks for making the time. We
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  Speaker 1: went with Chief Tubbs to visit several hotspots for drone activity.
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  Speaker 3: They primarily use drones for counter surveillance. They're also used
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  Speaker 3: to support their operations so that they can identify where U.S.
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  Speaker 3: law enforcement are working along the border. where Mexican law
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  Speaker 3: enforcement's working along the border so that they can do
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  Speaker 3: their movement of narcotics, humans coming into the U.S., and
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  Speaker 3: cash drugs going into Mexico. So you can see this
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  Speaker 3: is a typical area of the border between Webb County
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  Speaker 3: and Mexico. Literally, you could cross humans' narcotics across the
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  Speaker 3: river in less than a minute. And they're 300 yards
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  Speaker 3: to residential areas where they can take their narcotics, or
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  Speaker 3: the humans that they're smuggling, stash them.
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  Speaker 1: In houses, The drones typically stay in Mexico's airspace, which
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  Speaker 1: means that they're outside American jurisdiction. The Mexican minister of
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  Speaker 1: defense recently said that American law enforcement and military personnel
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  Speaker 1: have shared with Mexican officials that the drones are, quote,
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  Speaker 1: primarily used by criminal groups, but strictly for surveillance. But
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  Speaker 1: Chief Tubbs says he sees this kind of drone activity regularly.
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  Speaker 3: They usually fly their drones around the border because we
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  Speaker 3: can't take any action against their drones. And usually Mexican
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  Speaker 3: or Mexican counterparts can't react in time. So they'll fly
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  Speaker 3: the drone right here. They can have great surveillance up
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  Speaker 3: and down the river and into the U.S.
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  Speaker 1: A video posted the same week we visited shows exactly that.
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  Speaker 1: Just up the Rio Grande, you see a group of
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  Speaker 1: people being brought across the river by apparent smugglers in
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  Speaker 1: an inflatable raft and then running into the U.S. While
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  Speaker 1: the nearby cartel likely has thousands of drones, Chief Tubbs
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  Speaker 1: and his team only have two at their disposal. Which
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  Speaker 1: is why they've had to build their own counter surveillance
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  Speaker 1: operation using other means, including a command center. So plenty
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  Speaker 1: of screens in here. What are all of these screens
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  Speaker 1: telling you?
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  Speaker 3: So here we're deploying our technology. This allows us to
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  Speaker 3: surveil what the cartel is doing without having boots on
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  Speaker 3: the ground.
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  Speaker 2: Are you looking for drones? Are you looking for the eye?
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  Speaker 2: actual activity of smuggling of people and narcotics.
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  Speaker 3: We're looking for any sort of movement along the border.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: Whether we see people crossing the river, whether we see automobiles,
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  Speaker 3: if we see anybody operating drones, any movement along the border,
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  Speaker 3: we want to know about.
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  Speaker 2: And it's not just along the border.
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  Speaker 1: Inside Mexico, the use of drones by cartels has turned deadly.
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  Speaker 1: Across the country, cartels have attached homemade bombs to drones
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  Speaker 1: and dropped them on their rival's law enforcement, and even civilians.
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  Speaker 1: We looked at several videos posted to social media showing
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  Speaker 1: bombing attacks at this location in Michoacan, Mexico. You can
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  Speaker 1: see the drone drop ammunition above a target. It appears
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  Speaker 1: to have a tail fin made from a plastic cup,
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  Speaker 1: like some other bombs made by cartels, and it floats
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  Speaker 1: down to the ground before exploding near a tent. Other
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  Speaker 1: bombs the cartels are using can be far larger, In
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  Speaker 1: some cases, heavy-duty drones are carrying propane tanks fashioned into
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  Speaker 1: bombs like the one you see in these videos. Many
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  Speaker 1: of the videos feature patches and emojis like these that
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  Speaker 1: experts say represent affiliation with certain cartels in Mexico without
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  Speaker 1: being detected by content moderation filters. As cartels and criminal
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  Speaker 1: groups continue to expand their drone capabilities, law enforcement officials
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  Speaker 1: say they don't see any sign of the problem slowing down.
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  Speaker 3: Under the current operations, we'll never stop their drone operations.
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  Speaker 3: They went from having drones that maybe you'd see once
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  Speaker 3: a week, now you're seeing several flights a day.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think that'll change moving forward?
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  Speaker 3: I think they'll continue to increase. Makes them more effective,
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  Speaker 3: more efficient.