This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page and cartel members who spoke with The Daily Beast “We began training as a group in 2021, but only this year we started operating,” a Jalisco Cartel New Generation member of the Operadores Droneros (Drone Operators), told The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity. The group is mostly dedicated to finding and attacking rival cartels like Los Viagras, Knights Templar in Michoacán, and the Sinaloa Cartel in Jalisco, the cartel operator said. “It depends on which drone we use, but we can be miles away and confirm that they [rivals] are at a certain house or vehicle and then crash the drone with the explosives,” he said. The group has even come up with its own patch to distinguish themselves among the ranks of henchmen of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel It consists of an image of a quadcopter drone and the face of a skull at the center The patch has the CJNG letters at the bottom and the words “Operadores Droneros” at the top The group is allegedly composed of a dozen men and currently operates only in Michoacán and Jalisco states “The Operadores Droneros is still a new and not widespread group inside the Jalisco New Generation Cartel but that doesn’t mean it is harmless; they have enough power to focus our attention on to them,” a Mexican intelligence official inside Mexico’s army told The Daily Beast requesting to remain anonymous A member of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel wearing a drone operators unit patch posted online by an alleged member of the CJNG A Mexican state police operating in the state of Michoacán also confirmed to The Daily Beast the existence of the drone operators working within the Jalisco New Generation Cartel The drones used by the cartel are mostly produced in China and bought online through retail platforms like Amazon or Ebay they manipulate them to carry a load of makeshift explosives including potassium perchlorate and aluminum “Then we add some shrapnel like buckshots and nails to add more damage,” he said In a video obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast—purportedly taken from inside the Operadores Droneros unit in Michoacán—one of the alleged henchmen can be seen stuffing explosive charge inside plastic bottles The footage shows some nails and buckshots around the working area and a DJI commercial drone in the back of a pick-up truck The video was allegedly recorded a few hours before an attack against the Knights Templar in the small village of Apatzingan according to multiple sources inside the CJNG A screenshot from an exclusive video shared by a Jalisco New Generation Cartel member while preparing an explosive load to be used on a drone against a rival cartel in Michoacán The drone operations unit of the Jalisco cartel was first trained by “Americans and a Colombian man” who showed them how to source “A gringo [American] showed us how to make our own explosives since sourcing a real plastic explosive could be too attention-grabbing And the Colombian showed us how to drive and maneuver a drone,” he said Explosive drones have been some of the most lethal weapons used by cartels against Mexican authorities. That was made all too clear in November 2022, when a convoy from the Mexican military was attacked with explosive drones by henchmen from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as they approached the small town of Tepalcatepec in Michoacán Four were killed and six others were injured in the incident “The significance of the institutionalization of weaponized aerial drones by criminal armed groups.. can as a result present a more profound threat to the state and its security forces,” John P “Future potentials might include targeting law enforcement and customs and border patrol officials on the frontier,” Sullivan said Last week, China also admitted that most of the civilian drones used by criminal organizations and military were manufactured in that country and announced a series of sanctions and restrictions to exports starting this week But the export restrictions and the proposal of a new law in Mexico could mean nothing for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel “We understand they [Mexico and Chinese governments] have to do something This is a war and we will source our weapons from wherever we can,” the cartel operative said Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here currently covering drug trafficking and immigration Noor Ibrahim is the Managing Editor at The Daily Beast.Send her tips: noor.ibrahim@thedailybeast.com or tips@thedailybeast.com. You can also use our anonymous document submission system, SecureDrop. Click here to find out how.