A 25-year old man was recently sentenced to 12 years in prison for transporting 13 pounds of methamphetamine across the Mexican border into San Diego.
The culprit, Jorge Edwin Rivera, told police that he used drones to smuggle drugs between the United States and Mexico at least six times between March and August 2017.
He told the arresting agent that he would normally receive $1000 for each shipment and would meet his contact at a nearby gas station.
The San Diego authorities spotted the drone at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and tracked it down to Rivera who was found with two pounds of methamphetamine on his person.
The 2-foot drone seized by U.S. Border Patrol.
The main drawback to using a drone for this is the limited flight time plus the relatively light load a drone can manage. Even the most expensive drones are barely capable of moving heavy objects, let alone common consumer-grade drones.Not only that, but drones can be quite noisy and clumsy. Imagine a drone’s collision detection going haywire while delivering some expensive payload, for example.
