The United States has increased its use of drones in finding fentanyl labs in Mexico, according to a report from The New York Times.
An official familiar with the matter told the publication that the drones fly “well into sovereign Mexico.” No lethal action has been authorized, nor do officials envision the need to do so.
Drones have “proved adept at identifying labs,” The Times wrote. Fentanyl labs “emit chemicals that make them easy to find from the air.”
The purpose of the intelligence on fentanyl labs is not to launch strikes against them, officials explained, but to convince cartels to cease their operations.
The U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) has also bolstered security at the southern border, providing “full motion video analysis, counter network analysis, and Spanish language translation” to the U.S. Border Patrol Office of Intelligence, a statement said. The move comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order on protecting the American people against invasion.
On January 20, Trump signed an executive order designating international cartels and other entities as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, noting that the groups “constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime.”
“The Cartels functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States. In certain portions of Mexico, they function as quasi-governmental entities, controlling nearly all aspects of society. The Cartels’ activities threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere,” the order said. “Their activities, proximity to, and incursions into the physical territory of the United States pose an unacceptable national security risk to the United States.”
In August, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized an estimated 4 million fentanyl pills in Lukeville, Arizona. The more than 1,000-pound seizure was the largest in CBP history.
