Intelligence Online: Mexican Cartels Send Their Fighters to Ukraine to Master Drones

Mexican cartels send their members to Ukraine under false documents to learn how to pilot drones.

This is stated in an article by the French publication Intelligence Online.

In their article, the journalists refer to an alleged recent warning from Mexico’s National Intelligence Center (CNI) to the Security Service of Ukraine.

The information refers to the presence of Mexican volunteers who are suspected of joining foreign volunteer units not for ideological reasons, but to gain advanced knowledge in the use of drones, in particular FPV drones (First Person View).

At the request of the Mexican intelligence service, the SSU launched an investigation with the participation of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine into several Spanish-speaking individuals who joined foreign volunteer units in Ukraine.

An article from Intelligence Online claims that some Mexicans and Colombians who arrived in Ukraine showed an unhealthy interest in piloting drones, ignoring any other training.

Among them is a person under the pseudonym Aguila-7, the name given by the SSU to a Mexican volunteer registered in March 2024 under a false Salvadoran identity.

Posing as a humanitarian, he joined a foreign volunteer unit and later completed a full training course in Lviv.

The Ukrainian instructors noted his high qualifications: mastery of analog transmitters, ability to identify blind spots for a thermal imager, etc.

Further investigation revealed that he had served in the Mexican special forces unit GAFE, an elite unit trained in guerrilla tactics, counterinsurgency operations, and the use of modern weapons, including drones.

Some former GAFE fighters later joined the extremely violent Los Zetas cartel, founded by deserters from the same unit.

According to a European security source involved in identity checks at the Slovak border, at least three former fighters also passed through international units using Panamanian and Venezuelan documents. Some of these individuals are believed to have passed through private military companies acting as fronts.

In Mexico, local cartels are already attacking each other with drone strikes.