Police and gangs battle in the sky as drones become essential surveillance tools for both sides

Ecuador Police and Armed Forces are turning to drones to track the movement of criminal gang members as well as trucks and boats believed to be transporting cocaine. In recent weeks the government has credited drone reconnaissance with the capture of seven Los Lobos and Los Choneros gang members.

A police drone observes a clandestine gang operation at a warehouse in Machala in June. In the subsequent raid, police captured alias ‘Sampayo’, leader of Sao Box. They also arrested two National Police officers who were working with Sao Box. The vehicle on the left is a police cruiser.

In a recent radio interview, Interior Minister John Reimberg claimed that drones are giving police the “upper hand” in the pursuit and capture of wanted drug traffickers and the drugs they are transporting. “In June, we arrested Cristopher Mejía, alias ‘Sampayo’, who was third in command of Lobos Sao Box in Machala,” Reimberg said, adding that drones “have changed the nature of the war against narco terrorists.”

Reimbeg said that drones are not only being used to make arrests but to monitor land and sea routes of cocaine shipments from Colombia and Peru. “We are watching in real time as drugs enter Ecuador and pass along transport routes to distribution centers,” he said. “With better cooperation with Colombia and Peru, we will soon be adding more drone surveillance on the borders.”

What he didn’t say was that drones are also being used by criminal gangs to monitor the actions of police and military personnel. A gang leader, speaking anonymously to a BBC reporter last week, said his gang even uses drones to monitor police drones. “We know where they are and track them to see what their mission is,” the man said. “If they are watching one of our properties and preparing a raid, we alert our people and tell them to leave.”

The gang leader also said that his organization uses drones to direct shipments, sometimes using decoy trucks and fast boats if police drones are in the area. “They think we don’t know they are watching us, but we do,” he said. “We track their drones with ours and also with mobile radar trucks and all the information goes to our computer guys who are in contact with our people in the field.”

Former Ecuador army general Ángel Castro believes the battle for drone air supremacy will become a stalemate. “The miliary and police had the advantage early but the gangs and cartels are catching up quickly,” he said. “This is a game that can be played by both sides.”

Unfortunately, Castro says, the gangs could quickly gain the advantage in the drone war. “It’s not just the number of drones you have in the air, it’s what you do with the information and video they’re sending back to the ground and how it’s analyzed and interpreted. Both the police and narcos have technicians who manage drone movement and evaluate the feedback but I’m afraid the narcos will soon have the advantage from a technical standpoint.”

The quality of surveillance is all about “money and resources,” Castro says. “The police have tech people making $900 a month flying the drones and watching the images and communicating what they are seeing. The narcos have guys making $5,000 and $10,000 a month. So, who gets the best computer guys and technicians? Money talks, doesn’t it, and it buys the best talent.”

Castro said he understands the largest gangs are collaborating on the use of drones to monitor government activities. “They are killing each on the ground but they have a common interest in watching out for the police,” he says. “I have heard they have a joint tech center in southern Colombia.”

According to the National Police, it focuses drone missions in the areas around Guayaquil, Machala and Manta. “We are intensifying all aspects of surveillance, including that by drones, on the areas with the most intense criminal activity,” a police spokesman said Tuesday. “In June and July, drone surveillance has led directly to more than 30 arrests as well as the confiscation of large quantities of drugs, firearms and ammunition.”

Among the arrests were six police officers who were working with the gangs, the spokesman said.