The introduction of new technologies to the State Police through the Sentinel Platform has also led to the identification of the application of new methods for committing crimes.
In the Sierra de Chihuahua, with the support of anti-drone inhibitors, the State Public Security Secretariat has managed to “shoot down” unmanned aircraft, according to Gilberto Loya Chávez, head of the agency, although he did not specify what type of crimes they were being used for. However, on the northern border of the state, bordering the southern United States, he said, organized crime groups use drones to cross drugs, to monitor the border and even to guide migrants to the other side of the metal wall. “Here in the area of the municipality of Juárez or in the border area of this region, which comes from the Valley (of Juárez) to Ascensión, we have detected the use of drones for two things: one of them for drug trafficking, and we have seen that in the area of Anapra, in (the municipality of) Ascensión, including here in the area where the X monument (Plaza de la Mexicanidad) is, which have been used to cross drug packages and drop them off on that side,” said the state official.
He continued: “We have also seen, and especially in the area of human trafficking, and this is very specifically concentrated in the Anapra area for human trafficking. There we have seen that they are used both to monitor law enforcement and also as a probable guide to take people in a caravan, arriving, crossing into the United States.
There is no evidence in the newspaper archives of any arrests for human or drug trafficking of alleged criminals in possession of drones. There is only one precedent in December 2023, in which Carlos Manuel Salas, the Northern District prosecutor, stated that in the search for Karina RD, a woman found dead and who was buried in a “junkyard” in Anapra, they even found a drone that was used to monitor the area by criminal groups. “In the last place where this person was, a search warrant was requested and there were (video surveillance) cameras there and (the attackers) removed the server. We also had information that there was a drone; we searched the surrounding area of the 20 meters and found the server for the cameras, we also found the drone that was reviewed by the technological area of the Prosecutor’s Office,” said Salas. The phenomenon of the use of these new technologies in surveillance by criminals was spread by the US immigration authorities since 2019 (El Diario reported it in the article “With drones, ‘coyotes’ monitor the border”). Then, the Border Patrol documented some crossings of migrants, in areas previously “combed” by a drone. In February 2023, Gloria Chávez, head of the Rio Grande Valley Sector of the United States Border Patrol, assured that in the previous 12 months, more than 10 thousand incursions of drones operated by Mexican cartels were recorded in the border zone between Mexico and the area under their charge. In addition, 25 thousand drones used by these groups were detected, operated by criminals who, said Chávez, have 17 times more drones than the Border Patrol and twice as many flight hours, experience with the devices, as well as unlimited financing to grow their operations. On the other hand, the Mexican federal authorities have not reported this incident; the National Migration Institute, headed by Francisco Garduño Yáñez, has not reported any presence of drones on the border for criminal purposes, and neither has the Attorney General’s Office. In fact, the Migration Institute ordered the use of drones on the southern border of Mexico to monitor the entry of people considered “irregular” through those states, following an order and dissemination of the decision taken by Garduño himself, but then denied in response to an express request for information on documents with information on the use of unmanned aircraft in 2021. But on the fight against human trafficking from the Chihuahua borders, there is no official position. The State Public Security Secretariat recently reported that it has 75 drones and 15 anti-drone inhibitors throughout the state, with which they have shot down the aforementioned ones in the Sierra and sent many others back to their ports of departure during national holidays for not being registered to operate under their permits. Loya Chávez stressed that, despite the criminal activities identified with the use of unmanned aircraft as a tool, so far no armed attacks with drones have been recorded in the municipalities of Chihuahua, a situation confirmed by the State Attorney General’s Office in a request for information with data between 2020 and 2024, which showed zero attacks and therefore no people injured or killed.
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