Since February 2022 to date, the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has detected 155 mil drones used by criminal organizations to monitor military operations that protect the border with Mexico or try to cross the United States.
This is one of the reasons why the Donald Trump government hardens the policies to protect the northeast border, said Gloria I. Chávez, head of the border patrol of the Río Grande Valley sector, at virtual conference with media.
“I have a minimum of officers, almost 20 percent, which is dedicated to administrative process. Most, 80 percent of my officers are protecting the border with patrols because we also have the threat of drones.” The official said.
He added that these drones, which are operated by drug cartels, “They are doing surveillance” In the operations of the border patrol, which represents a real danger to the officers, he revealed.
In 2023, Gloria Chávez shared the confiscation of seven pounds of cocaine that was tied to a drone who tried to cross the drug to the United States.
“I was Chief of El Paso, Texas, in a few years, there was also the drone to cross what was cocaine and methamphetamines in the area of Ciudad Juárez, as well as El Paso, Texas, in the years that I was there from 2019 until 2022,” he explained.
Threat to the border patrol
Chief Chávez, who has more than 30 years of experience in the border patrol of the United States, emphasized that these drones perform surveillance in their operations and “are very dangerous for us.”
“We are investing technology to be able to stop those (drones) that we often see them by recording our operations to be able to handle their illicit work … (traffic) of narcotics as well as people, in areas that really are not often not present and take us to arrive,” he said.
Although he said to know perfectly the drug trafficking cartels that operate in that region of the Rio Grande, Gloria Chávez avoided referring to a specific one. Although, according to the drug mapping in Mexico at the end of 2024, in that area the Northeast Cartel operates and part of the Gulf Cartel.
“It is a very serious threat to all of us who work this border. We also know that many times the people who use these drones are dedicated to traffic and those are areas that we are already handling with the elements of the military, of the Military Army of Mexico, as well as the police agencies, ”warned the head of patrol of the sector of the Valley of the Rio Grande of the CBP.
With information from Quadratín.
