6 ms·

Somewhat off topic, what I find curious is that gangs have not yet started really making use of drones. I've heard of them being used to drop drugs and phones

Somewhat off topic, what I find curious is that gangs have not yet started really making use of drones. I've heard of them being used to drop drugs and phones into prisons, but not much else. Some of the higher end hobby drones can fly just as high as general aviation aircraft and really fast and carry a lot of weight. Or perhaps I have missed the stories?

CamperBob2 5y ago
Likewise, autonomous drug subs. Seems like it'd be impossible to interdict something like that between the Mexican coast and any arbitrary spot along the US west coast. If the cartels aren't already using autonomous subs, it seems surprising.
- hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine >The number of narcosubs—boats modified to minimize their profile while shuttling drugs, has exploded nearly tenfold in the past decade. https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-seas-suddenly-swimming-drug-223400474.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-seas-suddenly-swimming-drug-2...
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    Those are crewed, or occasionally towed behind a normal boat. It should be relatively straightforward at this point to build a sub that can navigate entirely by itself.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      GPS doesn’t work underwater. Almost all the drone tech navigates by GPS; converting over to an inertial nav system and making that reliable for autonomous underwater operation is a good bit more than “relatively straightforward” I think.
      - smiley1437 5y ago
        Narcosubs are typically just barely sub-surface, they don't operate deep like navy subs. The portion above water is designed to be low enough to be hidden by waves but is still above the surface so using GPS wouldn't be an issue.
        Gustomaximus 5y ago
        I'd assume narcos have fully submersible subs, just those ones don't get caught.
      - jet_32951 5y ago
        Easily done via small IMUs with aiding from GPS using a surface-tethered antenna.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > GPS doesn’t work underwater. Neither do most narco“subs”, which are mostly semi-submersible.
      - echelon 5y ago
        A waterproof mast could hold a GPS receiver above the water. Or the submersible could surface occasionally to sample its location and bearing. If it kept to a low profile, it wouldn't even matter if it was slightly above water.
dogma1138 5y ago
They do https://english.elpais.com/spain/2021-07-15/spanish-police-seize-large-drone-used-to-carry-drugs-from-morocco.html https://english.elpais.com/spain/2021-07-15/spanish-police-s... https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mexicos-cartels-are-using-drugs-for-attacks-drug-smuggling-2021-5?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mexicos-cartels-are-usin... P.S. you can buy the drone in the first article for a few 1000’s $ on Alibaba…
- skanga 5y ago
  I don't think there is anything that has a wingspan of 4.5 meters and a capacity to carry 150 kilos of cargo. You have any links?
  - 101_101 5y ago
    You take multiple trips.
  - moftz 5y ago
    I don't see typical commercial drones carrying major shipments but they could be used for small drops or for ISR operations to check on border crossings or overwatch during other activities.
  - GravitasFailure 5y ago
    Jump 20 by AeroVironment with a wingspan of 5.7m and a payload of 13.6kg[0]. A tweet from Spanish police with a video of the compartment[1]. A Vice article about the same drone[2]. At the end it says, "Police found seven drones, each with load capacities of between four and 25kg," which puts the biggest at 1/6th the capacity of this one. Allegedly. For perspective, the Aerolite-103, a single-seat ultralight aircraft with a maximum fuel+pilot+cargo takeoff weight of 147kg and a wingspan of 8.18m[3]. Of course, it's not like police would over hype[4] a drug bust[5]. [0] https://www.avinc.com/uas/jump-20 https://www.avinc.com/uas/jump-20 [1] https://twitter.com/policia/status/1414875097752653826?s=20 https://twitter.com/policia/status/1414875097752653826?s=20 [2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyvwmv/look-at-this-huge-drug-drone-seized-by-cops-in-spain https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyvwmv/look-at-this-huge-dru... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero-Works_Aerolite_103 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero-Works_Aerolite_103 [4] https://www.buzzfeed.com/aliciabarron/people-are-totally-underwhelmed-after-police-posted-this https://www.buzzfeed.com/aliciabarron/people-are-totally-und... [5] https://www.metro.us/nypd-makes-the-most-pathetic-drug-bust-ever-and-twitter-cant-even/ https://www.metro.us/nypd-makes-the-most-pathetic-drug-bust-...
canada_dry 5y ago
I'm waiting for the drone version of the "Doberman Gang" [i] [i] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068491/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068491/
stefan_ 5y ago
All the "drone delivery" startups and big co projects have outright failed or been nothing more than PR. There might be something about this that is a lot more difficult than can be seen prima facie, starting probably with the flight time of battery powered drones..
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  The biggest barriers are the law and liability. There is a lot of red tape, and rightfully so. Flying heavy items over residential areas comes with a lot of risk, risk that someone doing so illegally, with an untraceable aircraft, likely would not care about.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    And you're 1.) competing against the economics of standard delivery vehicles 2.) Ref: law/liability. At scale you're possibly violating airspace of people's property and, while I don't expect people in non-rural areas to start using them for skeet practice in general, I would expect lots of complaints to the government if they become annoying.
    - Ancapistani 5y ago
      > you're possibly violating airspace of people's property There is no such thing in the United States. All airspace is under federal jurisdiction, and the only agency with rule making authority is the FAA.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        Clearly people have some rights to the space over their property. Case law isn't well established but, outside of airport landing rights, the consensus seems to be something like 400 feet which is in general uncontrolled airspace. https://aerocorner.com/blog/drone-over-private-property/ https://aerocorner.com/blog/drone-over-private-property/ I probably won't shoot down a delivery drone though I may file a complaint. But if a drone starts poking around at low altitude over my property, it will definitely be skeet shooting practice time (on a rural property).
petee 5y ago
I think it might have been on the show, Drugs Inc. that I heard this -a gang member explaining how they'd use a drone with thermal over residential college areas, where students would often grow pot; then they'd knock on the door and either take it all, or conscripted them into growing for the gang.
- bobsil1 5y ago
  Distributed denial of cheeba attack
colordrops 5y ago
What makes you think they don't?
chriselles 5y ago
Gangs use of surveillance would ride on the back of their increasing awareness of counter-surveillance. They are increasingly using flight tracker tools to check and see if privately contracted aerial SIGINT services to local/state/federal government are orbiting overhead.
pengaru 5y ago
A cafe I used to frequent became a meth-dealers' hub of operations. One exceptional day he seemed to be coordinating receipt of some large shipment, and he started freaking out about some truck driver not being where he was supposed to be who apparently had a tail to monitor his whereabouts. Over the phone with the tail, quite loudly despite being on public display, he instructed the tail to "deploy the kite". Once deployed, he monitored a video+audio feed on his laptop from what must have been a kite surveillance drone. From the feed he seemed to discover the driver was on the phone arguing with his wife, and apparently this was the reason for pulling over. Based on this experience I'm under the impression gangs are definitely already using drones. You probably don't hear much about it, because they're being successful.
- loh 5y ago
  I'm curious as to how you knew he's a meth dealer. I'm guessing he was being very overt about his operations? That seems like it would be really entertaining, at least until he figures out you're paying close attention.
  - pengaru 5y ago
    He told the tail something along the lines of "He's pulled over on the side of the road? He has meth shit in the back!" Up until that day I had no idea what he was dealing, but he was obviously a drug dealer; every week a cadre of scummy looking people would meet him in the cafe and give him their burner phones, he'd toss the phones into his backpack and give them all new ones. This story has way more ridiculousness to it, especially from that particular day... maybe for another time.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Sounds like you've been watching Better Call Saul! Although, they were handing over stacks of cash instead of swapping burners, but yeah, essentially the same premise.
      - pengaru 5y ago
colinmhayes 5y ago
I'm surprised no one has been assassinated by a drone. Train a computer vision model for the target, attach a gun, and let it fly around until the person is found.
- hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
  Assassination by drone has happened; just ask General Qassem Soleimani of Iran. By an autonomous drone, though? Maybe not.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Hopefully, their "AI" facial recognition doesn't pick the wrong person. That would be worse than looking for all of the Sarah Conners in the phone book one by one.
- zardo 5y ago
  The US has been using drones for assassination for something like 18 years now.
- GordonS 5y ago
  The US has killed 10-21k people with drone strikes since 9/11, including 1-2k civilians and hundreds of children [0]. Of course, real numbers are likely much higher. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S...
spoonjim 5y ago
The main activity of gangs is transporting drugs. They do use autonomous aircraft to transport drugs but except for synthetic drugs, generally the volumes are high enough to require sea transport (narcosubmarines).
cryptonector 5y ago
I remember that one of the Colombian drug gangs tried building a submarine in the jungle for ferrying drugs under water. I'm sure they'll try other such things. Drones mean not losing a human who might tattle.
- RF_Savage 5y ago
  They still build them, narcosubmarines are a legit problem law enforcement across the globe now.
- ricktdotorg 5y ago
  For those interested in learning more about narcobubmarines, I recommend H I Sutton. His original work [1] and his twitter stream [2] are very solid. [1] http://www.hisutton.com/Largest-Narco-Submarines-Compared.html http://www.hisutton.com/Largest-Narco-Submarines-Compared.ht... [2] https://twitter.com/covertshores https://twitter.com/covertshores
  - shadilay 5y ago
    He also writes for naval news. https://www.navalnews.com/author/hisutton/ https://www.navalnews.com/author/hisutton/

CamperBob2 5y ago

Likewise, autonomous drug subs. Seems like it'd be impossible to interdict something like that between the Mexican coast and any arbitrary spot along the US west coast. If the cartels aren't already using autonomous subs, it seems surprising.

hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine >The number of narcosubs—boats modified to minimize their profile while shuttling drugs, has exploded nearly tenfold in the past decade. https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-seas-suddenly-swimming-drug-223400474.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-seas-suddenly-swimming-drug-2...
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  Those are crewed, or occasionally towed behind a normal boat. It should be relatively straightforward at this point to build a sub that can navigate entirely by itself.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    GPS doesn’t work underwater. Almost all the drone tech navigates by GPS; converting over to an inertial nav system and making that reliable for autonomous underwater operation is a good bit more than “relatively straightforward” I think.
    - smiley1437 5y ago
      Narcosubs are typically just barely sub-surface, they don't operate deep like navy subs. The portion above water is designed to be low enough to be hidden by waves but is still above the surface so using GPS wouldn't be an issue.
      - Gustomaximus 5y ago
        I'd assume narcos have fully submersible subs, just those ones don't get caught.
    - jet_32951 5y ago
      Easily done via small IMUs with aiding from GPS using a surface-tethered antenna.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > GPS doesn’t work underwater. Neither do most narco“subs”, which are mostly semi-submersible.
    - echelon 5y ago
      A waterproof mast could hold a GPS receiver above the water. Or the submersible could surface occasionally to sample its location and bearing. If it kept to a low profile, it wouldn't even matter if it was slightly above water.

dogma1138 5y ago

They do https://english.elpais.com/spain/2021-07-15/spanish-police-seize-large-drone-used-to-carry-drugs-from-morocco.html https://english.elpais.com/spain/2021-07-15/spanish-police-s... https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mexicos-cartels-are-using-drugs-for-attacks-drug-smuggling-2021-5?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mexicos-cartels-are-usin... P.S. you can buy the drone in the first article for a few 1000’s $ on Alibaba…

skanga 5y ago
I don't think there is anything that has a wingspan of 4.5 meters and a capacity to carry 150 kilos of cargo. You have any links?
- 101_101 5y ago
  You take multiple trips.
- moftz 5y ago
  I don't see typical commercial drones carrying major shipments but they could be used for small drops or for ISR operations to check on border crossings or overwatch during other activities.
- GravitasFailure 5y ago
  Jump 20 by AeroVironment with a wingspan of 5.7m and a payload of 13.6kg[0]. A tweet from Spanish police with a video of the compartment[1]. A Vice article about the same drone[2]. At the end it says, "Police found seven drones, each with load capacities of between four and 25kg," which puts the biggest at 1/6th the capacity of this one. Allegedly. For perspective, the Aerolite-103, a single-seat ultralight aircraft with a maximum fuel+pilot+cargo takeoff weight of 147kg and a wingspan of 8.18m[3]. Of course, it's not like police would over hype[4] a drug bust[5]. [0] https://www.avinc.com/uas/jump-20 https://www.avinc.com/uas/jump-20 [1] https://twitter.com/policia/status/1414875097752653826?s=20 https://twitter.com/policia/status/1414875097752653826?s=20 [2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyvwmv/look-at-this-huge-drug-drone-seized-by-cops-in-spain https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyvwmv/look-at-this-huge-dru... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero-Works_Aerolite_103 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero-Works_Aerolite_103 [4] https://www.buzzfeed.com/aliciabarron/people-are-totally-underwhelmed-after-police-posted-this https://www.buzzfeed.com/aliciabarron/people-are-totally-und... [5] https://www.metro.us/nypd-makes-the-most-pathetic-drug-bust-ever-and-twitter-cant-even/ https://www.metro.us/nypd-makes-the-most-pathetic-drug-bust-...

canada_dry 5y ago

I'm waiting for the drone version of the "Doberman Gang" [i] [i] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068491/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068491/

stefan_ 5y ago

All the "drone delivery" startups and big co projects have outright failed or been nothing more than PR. There might be something about this that is a lot more difficult than can be seen prima facie, starting probably with the flight time of battery powered drones..

BobbyJo 5y ago
The biggest barriers are the law and liability. There is a lot of red tape, and rightfully so. Flying heavy items over residential areas comes with a lot of risk, risk that someone doing so illegally, with an untraceable aircraft, likely would not care about.
- ghaff 5y ago
  And you're 1.) competing against the economics of standard delivery vehicles 2.) Ref: law/liability. At scale you're possibly violating airspace of people's property and, while I don't expect people in non-rural areas to start using them for skeet practice in general, I would expect lots of complaints to the government if they become annoying.
  - Ancapistani 5y ago
    > you're possibly violating airspace of people's property There is no such thing in the United States. All airspace is under federal jurisdiction, and the only agency with rule making authority is the FAA.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Clearly people have some rights to the space over their property. Case law isn't well established but, outside of airport landing rights, the consensus seems to be something like 400 feet which is in general uncontrolled airspace. https://aerocorner.com/blog/drone-over-private-property/ https://aerocorner.com/blog/drone-over-private-property/ I probably won't shoot down a delivery drone though I may file a complaint. But if a drone starts poking around at low altitude over my property, it will definitely be skeet shooting practice time (on a rural property).

petee 5y ago

I think it might have been on the show, Drugs Inc. that I heard this -a gang member explaining how they'd use a drone with thermal over residential college areas, where students would often grow pot; then they'd knock on the door and either take it all, or conscripted them into growing for the gang.

bobsil1 5y ago
Distributed denial of cheeba attack

colordrops 5y ago

What makes you think they don't?

chriselles 5y ago

Gangs use of surveillance would ride on the back of their increasing awareness of counter-surveillance. They are increasingly using flight tracker tools to check and see if privately contracted aerial SIGINT services to local/state/federal government are orbiting overhead.

pengaru 5y ago

A cafe I used to frequent became a meth-dealers' hub of operations. One exceptional day he seemed to be coordinating receipt of some large shipment, and he started freaking out about some truck driver not being where he was supposed to be who apparently had a tail to monitor his whereabouts. Over the phone with the tail, quite loudly despite being on public display, he instructed the tail to "deploy the kite". Once deployed, he monitored a video+audio feed on his laptop from what must have been a kite surveillance drone. From the feed he seemed to discover the driver was on the phone arguing with his wife, and apparently this was the reason for pulling over. Based on this experience I'm under the impression gangs are definitely already using drones. You probably don't hear much about it, because they're being successful.

loh 5y ago
I'm curious as to how you knew he's a meth dealer. I'm guessing he was being very overt about his operations? That seems like it would be really entertaining, at least until he figures out you're paying close attention.
- pengaru 5y ago
  He told the tail something along the lines of "He's pulled over on the side of the road? He has meth shit in the back!" Up until that day I had no idea what he was dealing, but he was obviously a drug dealer; every week a cadre of scummy looking people would meet him in the cafe and give him their burner phones, he'd toss the phones into his backpack and give them all new ones. This story has way more ridiculousness to it, especially from that particular day... maybe for another time.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Sounds like you've been watching Better Call Saul! Although, they were handing over stacks of cash instead of swapping burners, but yeah, essentially the same premise.
    - pengaru 5y ago

colinmhayes 5y ago

I'm surprised no one has been assassinated by a drone. Train a computer vision model for the target, attach a gun, and let it fly around until the person is found.

hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
Assassination by drone has happened; just ask General Qassem Soleimani of Iran. By an autonomous drone, though? Maybe not.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Hopefully, their "AI" facial recognition doesn't pick the wrong person. That would be worse than looking for all of the Sarah Conners in the phone book one by one.
zardo 5y ago
The US has been using drones for assassination for something like 18 years now.
GordonS 5y ago
The US has killed 10-21k people with drone strikes since 9/11, including 1-2k civilians and hundreds of children [0]. Of course, real numbers are likely much higher. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S...

spoonjim 5y ago

The main activity of gangs is transporting drugs. They do use autonomous aircraft to transport drugs but except for synthetic drugs, generally the volumes are high enough to require sea transport (narcosubmarines).

cryptonector 5y ago

I remember that one of the Colombian drug gangs tried building a submarine in the jungle for ferrying drugs under water. I'm sure they'll try other such things. Drones mean not losing a human who might tattle.

RF_Savage 5y ago
They still build them, narcosubmarines are a legit problem law enforcement across the globe now.
ricktdotorg 5y ago
For those interested in learning more about narcobubmarines, I recommend H I Sutton. His original work [1] and his twitter stream [2] are very solid. [1] http://www.hisutton.com/Largest-Narco-Submarines-Compared.html http://www.hisutton.com/Largest-Narco-Submarines-Compared.ht... [2] https://twitter.com/covertshores https://twitter.com/covertshores
- shadilay 5y ago
  He also writes for naval news. https://www.navalnews.com/author/hisutton/ https://www.navalnews.com/author/hisutton/