Border Patrol agents seized nearly half a million dollars worth of drugs that were dropped 10 miles from the border of California by an ultralight aircraft that had flown over the border from Mexico into the United States before quickly returning.
Federal law enforcement agents in Calexico, California, discovered the drug smuggling attempt as it unfolded Thursday night. Agents on patrol in southeastern California heard a loud noise in the sky and reported it to the station’s video surveillance team, which confirmed an ultralight was flying over the border into the U.S. Ultralights resemble go-karts and are operated by one pilot, according to Customs and Border Protection. They have been used in the El Centro region to move smaller quantities of drugs over the border wall.
Agents were alerted by the surveillance team that the ultralight had landed in a neighborhood approximately 10 miles north of the international border. Responding agents found three large bundles that had been dropped from the aircraft for a smuggler to pick up and transport. No one was arrested, and the ultralight flew back to Mexico before federal agents were able to interdict it.
The bundles were brought back to a local Border Patrol station, where inspectors counted 151 pounds of methamphetamine and 12 pounds of cocaine. The drugs had a combined street value of $488,988 and were turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In 2018, agents in California interdicted an ultralight that had flown two Chinese men over the border, and the flying machines are frequently heard or spotted while flying narcotics over the border. In 2010, before drones hit the market, smugglers in Mexico were flying ultralight aircraft packed with marijuana over the border into Arizona’s Tucson and Yuma regions, as well as San Diego. Smugglers would use a small man, often a teenage boy, to fly the load from Tijuana into San Diego. Agents had an easier time detecting and catching the pilot because of how loud and visible the machines were when they flew by, even at night. They would drop 50 to 200 pounds of drugs to someone waiting for them on the U.S. side, then take off back to Mexico.
That lasted until 2014, when drones emerged and a few years later became the new method for smuggling illegal or regulated items without using a foot soldier. Because the ultralights used loud engines, they were easier to hear even 100 to 200 feet above ground, compared to a near-silent drone buzzing by at up to 50 miles per hour.
