The temporary closure of airspace over El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday raised unease along the U.S.-Mexico border and brought renewed attention to drone technology in the hands of Mexican drug cartels, according to reporting by the Associated Press. The AP said the move highlighted how the aircraft have been used to modernize criminal operations—ranging from drug smuggling and surveillance to attacks on rival groups and Mexican authorities.
U.S. officials initially linked the airspace closure to concerns about an incursion by Mexican cartel drones, the AP reported. Other people familiar with the situation later questioned that explanation, underscoring how quickly the drone threat has become a focal point in border security.
In testimony that AP said came from the Department of Homeland Security’s counter-drone program, Steven Willoughby, the deputy director, described how cartels use drones frequently. Willoughby told Congress in July that cartels use drones almost daily to move drugs across the border and to monitor Border Patrol agents.
AP also cited DHS counter-drone data indicating how widespread the detected drone activity was near the southern border. The AP said that in the last six months of 2024, more than 27,000 drones were detected within 500 meters of the U.S. southern border, mainly at night.
The AP report traced the broader pattern to earlier smuggling methods tied to the history of Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso. In the 1990s, drug trafficker Amado Carrillo Fuentes—described by AP as the founder of the Juárez Cartel—specialized in transporting large shipments in small aircraft and earned the nickname “The Lord of the Skies.” After Carrillo Fuentes died under suspicious circumstances following botched plastic surgery in 1997, his brothers and sons continued operating out of Ciudad Juárez.
AP said that about 15 years later, when Carrillo Fuentes’s brother Vicente was arrested, it was estimated that 70% of the cocaine entering the United States came through Juárez. The AP also described how, by 2010, Mexico issued an international alert about drug traffickers’ use of remotely piloted aircraft systems, and how the practice grew in the following years.
As authorities tracked changes at the border, AP said the drones’ role evolved alongside shifts in the drugs being moved. AP reported that between 2012 and 2014, U.S. authorities detected 150 unmanned aircraft systems crossing the border with Mexico, and that a decade later U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 10,000 incursions in the Rio Grande Valley area of southern Texas alone, citing data from the International Narcotics Control Board. Over time, AP said the drugs flowing into the United States shifted from bulk marijuana to more compact synthetics such as methamphetamine and fentanyl that drones could carry.
The AP report also described drones being used as weapons. It said that in 2021 Mexico began publicly reporting the use of explosive-laden drones to attack security forces, and that at the time the tactic was associated with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) in states including Michoacán, Guanajuato and Jalisco. AP reported that the Mexican army said then that the drones were not as effective as criminals would like because they could carry only small explosive charges, sometimes taped onto the drones.
Beyond direct attacks, AP said drones spread across criminal groups and, according to Mexican authorities, have been used for surveillance, including transmitting real-time images. It said that in states such as Michoacán, both commercial drones and larger agricultural drones about one meter in diameter have been used; rather than spraying, AP said those units can be fitted with adapters for explosives using data from the state’s government.
In 2025, AP reported that the International Narcotics Control Board said cartels were increasingly using improvised drone systems to smuggle fentanyl, sometimes with homemade drones capable of carrying up to 100 kilograms. AP said the shift is driven by satellite technologies that allow traffickers to pre-program precise landing sites and reduce delivery risks.
The AP report also outlined how government efforts extend beyond monitoring and interdiction of cartel drones. It said Mexico has used drones for its own purposes—both to combat cartels and to monitor migrant caravans in 2018 and 2019—and has deployed specialized anti-drone equipment in border regions. AP said the Mexican army operates such systems along borders dividing Sinaloa, Jalisco and Michoacán, with Michoacán also having its own unit dedicated to that work.
AP further said that last July, the southern state of Chiapas announced it was purchasing a fleet of armed drones to battle the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels that were fighting for control of Mexico’s southern border. Together, the AP account depicts drones as both a tool cartels increasingly rely on and a challenge governments are racing to counter with their own technology.