Are Drones the Technological Mexican Drug-Smuggling 'Mules' of the Future? Joseph Serna - Los Angeles Times
go to original January 23, 2015

This week, this drone carrying a shipment of methamphetamine crashed into a parking lot near the San Ysidro crossing at the US-Mexico border. (Sputnik)

On Tuesday a drone carrying methamphetamine crashed in Mexico not far from the San Ysidro border crossing this week, triggering an investigation by Tijuana police and raising the question of whether the technology is a new avenue for drug smuggling.

But drones just don’t seem to be a cost-effective way of drug smuggling, said DEA spokeswoman Amy Roderick.

“This method will only allow a small amount of drugs to be flown at a time, and that coupled with the ease of detection, does not make this method very profitable to these drug trafficking organizations whose motivation is money," she said.

In this week's case, an anonymous resident in Tijuana called local police and reported seeing a “flying artifact” with packages attached crash in a shopping center parking lot. The aircraft was an unmanned aerial system, commonly called a drone, and had six packages of methamphetamine, according to a Facebook post by Tijuana police.

Read the rest at GovTech.com

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