How a covert U.S. drone program in Mexico led to arrest of drug kingpins like El Chapo

Drones provided vital information leading to capture of El Chapo and senior drug figures, officials said. The U.S. is using unarmed drones to conduct surveillance of drug cartels inside of Mexico, according to U.S. and Mexican officials, highly secretive operations that helped Mexican officials arrest major drug figures like Sinaloa cartel drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

A U.S. Predator drone was in the air assisting Mexico when El Chapo was captured at the Sinaloa beach resort town of Mazatlán in 2014. After the drug lord escaped a Mexican maximum security prison by tunneling out, U.S. drones took to the skies again to hunt El Chapo, surveilling his movements for weeks.

On the eve of a 2015 operation to recapture the Sinaloa gangster, officials called off the plan after getting word that actor Sean Penn and Mexican soap opera star Kate del Castillo were planning to meet with El Chapo for an interview and to discuss potentially making a movie about his life.

By January 2016, another strike was planned to capture El Chapo in the city of Los Mochis. The drug lord initially evaded capture by fleeing in a secret tunnel under a bathtub in a safe house and then walking through a sewer, but he was apprehended by a police officer.

Officials have also reportedly credited the drone program with helping locate another Chapo son, Ovidio Guzmán, who was captured after a massive gun battle in 2023 between Mexican special forces and cartel soldiers at a fortified compound north of Culiacán, the capital of the cartel’s home base of Sinaloa state.

The flights have reportedly been taking place since the early 2000s. The unmanned drones, which aren’t presently authorized to take lethal action, are used to detect fentanyl labs, which emit chemical signatures visible from the air, according to the report.

The U.S. military’s Northern Command has also been flying surveillance flights above the border region and deployed a task force of intelligence analysts to the international boundary line, per the paper. The nature of security U.S. and Mexican operations against the cartels remains a sensitive and highly watched topic in both countries.

The White House has also declared a national emergency, with plans to send up to 4,000 National Guard troops to the border. The administration has threatened Mexico with major tariffs if it doesn’t step up enforcement against drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

South of the border, President Sheinbaum has sought to balance cooperating with the Trump administration and allaying domestic concerns about U.S. overreach. She’s promised to send thousands of national guard troops of her own to the border, while at the same time, her party has proposed to reform the Mexican constitution to further guarantee the country’s sovereignty in the face of foreign intervention.