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.
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.
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.
Drones provided vital information leading to capture of El Chapo and senior drug figures, officials said.
Predator drone was in the air assisting Mexico when El Chapo was captured at the Sinaloa beach resort town of Mazatlán in 2014.
