Two youngsters found guilty of drug trafficking with drones

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Milenio article

[ Subject Matter: Drones, Drug trafficking
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required]

Jonathan Elias and Brayan Valle, 18 and 19 years old respectively, accepted charges of possession of 12.7 kilograms of Heroin with intent to distribute.

Reporter: Efe
Two youths were declared guilty of trafficking 12.7 kilos of Heroin from Mexico to the United States utilising drones to move their drugs across the border, informed the Attorney General of South California.

According to the department of National Security, this is being treated as the first time, agents from the United States arrested people for the use of drones to traffic Mexican drugs.

The Federal prosecutor for the district, Laura Duffy, signalled that before the reinforcement of frontier security, criminal organisation had been seen using other methods for trafficking drugs into the United States.




"We have encountered their tunnels, their Cessnas, their jet skis, their skis and now we have encountered their drones, indicated the prosecutor  after an audience with a Judge of the Federal Court of San Diego.

The accused, identified as Jonathan Elias and Brayan Valle, of 18 and 19 years old, accepted charges of possession of 12.7 kilos of Heroin with intent to supply.

On April 28th, Elias drove with his accomplice to an agricultural camp close to the frontier with Calexico to collect packets of drugs that they trafficked into the country using drones, detailed the Federal Demand.

"The use of drones to introduce drugs along the Mexican Frontier with the United States is an emerging threat", said Ronnie Martinez special agent of the DHS in California.

The functionary emphasised that to work in this manner with other security agencies to identify and dismantle criminal operations that utilise unmanned planes to carry out their " illicit experiments".

"A group of investigators of distinct police agencies are assigned to investigate all the activities of contraband areas along the border and decommission, however they transit their drugs".

The first time that one spoke of using this technology to traffic drugs on this frontier was in January of this year, when police in Tijuana found a drone constructed to carry 2.7 kilograms of Methamphetamines in a car park close to San Ysidro. ( Otis: see Chivis article on Drones see link and BB reporter J article on the Tijuana drone see link)

Mexican authorities signalled on this occasion, the apparatus couldn't deal with the weight of the cargo, and crashed during flight.

Original article in Spanish at Milenio