What Wall? Mexican Cartels Turning to Drones, Ultralights to Smuggle Drugs

Up in the air! Is it a bird?  Is it a plane?  Nope. It's the Mexican cartels, Newsradio 1200 WOAI reports.

President Trump's border wall is not stopping drug smugglers from getting their illicit loads into the United States.  Border Patrol agents in Southern California caught the cartels using an ultralight aircraft to smuggle methamphetamines north of Calexico.

"Agents responded to the location and discovered two brown zippered bags lying under heavy brush, a metallic cage and a bicycle in the agricultural field where the aircraft was observed to have dropped in altitude," the release says.

And while surprising, former Border Patrol Chief Victor Manjarrez says this is not the first time we've seen this.

"The first time I became aware of it was in 2005," he says.  "That's when fencing was going up in El Paso."

Now a teacher at the University of Texas El Paso's Center for Law and Human Behavior, he says this latest capture should not affect the debate over the border wall.

"As a law enforcement officer, I would rather have them in an ultralight than on the ground, in this vastness of the southern border."

And he says this proves that, while a border wall will not stop the drug smugglers, it makes their job more difficult and gives law enforcement the edge in stopping the movement of drugs into places like Texas.

 In this latest case, agents encountered two individuals in the vicinity who were interviewed and arrested on suspicion they were receiving the dropped narcotics.

IMAGE: GETTY


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