Some Mexican Drug Cartel Is About to Get an Angry Letter from the FAA
Dealers turn to drones for deliveries.


Oh, sure, if you want to get perfectly legal beer delivered via drone, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is going to tell you no. But there's an easy way to get around them. Just be a drug cartel!
It seems somebody in Mexico is using drones to deliver meth. Black market innovation in action! There's still some perfecting to be done, as the drone ended up crashing in the parking lot of a Tijuana supermarket. Police believe it was attempting to cross the border into the United States, according to NBC's San Diego affiliate. A report last summer from the Drug Enforcement Agency said cartels started turning to drones back in 2011, but have stepped up their use to deliver drugs across the border because it's cheaper than methods like digging tunnels and can't be picked up on radar.
All this absurd activity is because America has been successful in making it hard to easily purchase the ingredients for Americans to make their own meth. This doesn't stop people from wanting to use meth in any way, shape or form. It just makes it cheaper for Mexican cartels to provide the meth to Americans and fuels international drug trade. But now that states like Washington and Colorado have legalized recreational marijuana use, we're seeing the opposite. As it becomes cheaper (and safer) for America to produce its own marijuana, its wrecking Mexico's crops. Maybe those drones were also going to pick up some ganja from our side to bring back down south.
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Can't wait for transporters.
Yet another example of technology putting people out of work.
Drones - the ATM of the drug trade
Drones can be picked up on radar.
Radar requires an RF signature. I don't think the Aegis Combat Weapons System SPY-1A,B,C could pick a small plastic part out of the air. If you know something I don't, please tell.
Doesn't matter either way. The battery life is about 8 minutes. Are they going to scramble after a drone as soon as they pick it up on radar?
Hey, as long as it's expensive, you know they're gonna try.
Anything that moves can be found by radar. OTH backscatter radar can find a plastic bag on the ocean surface, Nimrods could similarly find sub periscopes sticking out of the water. JSTARs routinely find the low and slow stuff.
Just depends on how much energy and manpower/computer power you want to throw at it.
There was a lovely film made by the guys developing the CIWS where they mounted a camera on the platform, and filmed sea-gulls by locking the targeting radar on them.
Haha, that's awesome. And being from Florida, I wish they had opened up the turrets on those demon birds.
Searats?
If only we could get wings on the pythons like I wanted to, we could end the gull menace.
That's likely not going to be available for a while, but what we might be able to do in the nearer term is build flying python robodrones, operated by a computer that interfaces with a python brain. If hooking a python brain up to a computer is too challenging, then we can simply use remote-controlled drones piloted by pythons.
Can we program the interface computers in Python?
Also, it's the damn 21st century, if we can't hook up a python brain to a computer, why do we even bother doing anything anymore.
Python brains are the key to flying cars. Mark my words.
Shit hawks
No, "hawk" is too complimentary.
Shit buzzards.
As drone technology gets better and better this will be more and more common. The payloads will get bigger, the drones faster and more accurate with longer ranges. The drug war is and always was not winnable.
Of course this will be the perfect excuse for the feds to squash the drone economy.
The payloads will get bigger, the drones faster and more accurate with longer ranges...
and they'll become self aware and start hunting us.
http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/HK-Aerial
Thanks Drug Warriors!
I doubt the payloads will get bigger. The 2-cycle engine or batteries cannot get big enough for radar to distinguish them from noise. It's better to have many small payloads than a few big ones. Economy of scale!
See, this is why we need microfusion reactors, to power drones. And lots of them. The sky should be darkened by drones, anti-drones, anti-anti-drones, spydrones, anti-spydrones, anti-anti-spydrones, and porndrones.
If the flight is short enough, it doesn't matter if radar picks it up; can the cops get to its landing spot in time?
If the drone is only up in the air and visible for a few seconds to hop the fence, and hugs the ground the rest of the flight, especially if it's zooming through trees or down alleys, radar will lose it.
Try to squash the drone economy that is. They won't succeed.
Police believe it was attempting to cross the border into the United States,
ACT OF WAR!
Break out the plans for Operation Shredded Taco.
I thought our rapid response plan was Operation Refried Beaner.
^^ THIS
Y'all might jest, but President Eisenhower invoked "Operation Wetback".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback
Horrible! Then you find out millions of Haitians are a boat trip away (and the fantastic ideas Byron Caplan) from Miami and you'll still say "Horrible." What's horrible now, professor?
Those things could be rigged up to throw rocks! The border patrols needs a billion dollars in shoulder fired missiles right now!
Those things could be rigged up to throw rocks!
If by "Those things" you mean seagulls, then yes. They are flying rats and will popcorn, donuts, nuts, bolts, and an SUV if ground up fine enough. And then they poop.
I wonder how much trouble the guy flying the drone is in with the cartel.
Oh, that guy? That guy no longer has any troubles.
Curse you!
Next time, send your response by drone!
I did. It ran out of battery power!
No trouble at all. He is dead, and beyond trouble now.
The drugs were found on the Mexican side of the border, so they were probably returned to the cartel.
And very politely so.
Same thing happened in Kings of the High Frontier, except with rockets instead of drones. Sweet.
These drones need bobble-generators.
The sky should be darkened by drones, anti-drones, anti-anti-drones, spydrones, anti-spydrones, anti-anti-spydrones, and porndrones.
What about my flying car? The whole point is lost, if the sky is just a big traffic jam.
That's why we need to get people out of their flying cars and into flying trains.
How about a, um, pilot study with flying light rail first?
nah...a high speed solar powered flying train with fairy dust as an exhaust
The Jetson's were white. You didn't notice *that* while glaring at the CRT over the VHF television feed in your footsie pajamas with a bowl of Captain Crunch on your lap, but others did.
No, you weren't at Selma, you've never been to Vietnam, your mother's not a hooker, but you did throw a pop-tart at your lesbian sister. Answer up.
a, um, pilot study
That guy with the narrow eyes is never around when you need him.