Drug traffickers accustomed to exploiting Ireland’s enormous coastline and limited naval resources to police it are set to soon find their work complicated by the deployment of drones equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) peering down from on high.
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The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is investigating a drug trafficking incident where a tiny DJI Mini 2 drone was used to smuggle 259g of meth – 10g more than the drone’s own weight – across the US border.
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A police raid in Spain has busted a ring of criminals using a muscled-up drone to transport drugs into Europe. It’s not impossible the suspected organizers in Morocco are lamenting the arrest of their four gang cohorts less than the loss of their impressive craft.
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Californian police are looking into a drone’s role in a suspected drug dealer’s attempt to deliver heroin to his customers. As the police arrested the suspected drug dealer, he was flying a drone with what is believed to be heroin attached to it.
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The United States Southern Command’s (SOUTHCOM) counter-narcotics operations are testing drones for aerial support on future missions. The drone demonstrated its benefits during operations in the Eastern Pacific from October 6th, 2019, to July 31st, 2020.
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Drones have been delivering everything from life-saving medicine to coffee for some time now, but a Seattle company hopes to add cannabis to the list by using drones to deliver it directly to dispensaries.
GRN Holdings announced the move publicly in December when it signed a letter of intent to purchase drones for cannabis delivery.
Drug gang used drones to spy on Spanish police. The gang allegedly used the drones to spot possible police presence before bringing in shipments of hashish. Police arrested the 12 suspected gang members in the town of La Linea de la Concepcion, Spain.
In a less than genius move, a Scottish gang filmed themselves with the drone, they were going to use to fly drugs into prison. The drone crashed on the prison grounds and was picked up by a guard who found all the incriminating footage, including faces, a house number and a car that belonged to them.
On Tuesday, a Southern California man and woman got busted by the police for delivering drugs by drone to their customers in a nearby parking lot. The couple, Benjamin Paul Baldassarre, 39, and Ashley Lauren Carroll, 31, lived with a 9-year-old girl in their drug littered home. They were charged with possession of controlled substances for sale, possession of drug paraphernalia and child endangerment, City News Service reported.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection released b-roll video footage showing various prototypes of the border wall Trump promised during his campaign. The video is shot from a drone that flies over the various wall prototypes and like Matt Novak from Gizmodo points out: “the drone video of border wall prototypes accidently shows how worthless the wall would be.” Trump said that the purpose of the wall was to stop: “drugs from pouring into this country”. However, any affordable and easily obtainable consumer drone would have no problem flying over the wall to drop drugs on the other side.
The Liverpool Echo reported that a man was arrested after a foiled drone drugs drop-off at the Walton Prison in Liverpool, England. Prison staff had sighted the drone flying over the prison on Thursday, October 19, around 12:40am with a package hanging below it. Merseyside police officers came out and located a man in a nearby field. The package contained not only drugs but also mobile phones and tobacco. Very similar to the drop-off attempt we reported on earlier in Michigan. The suspect in this case fled but was apprehended in a backyard on Stuart Road North in Bootle. The drone and controller were located in the field. Another package was later found under a van on Stuart Road North. It contained mobile phones, cannabis, and tobacco.
