Mexican soldiers seized 48 drones of the fiber-optic type, along with 64 drone batteries and 44 reels of fiber-optic cable, on the highway from El Rosario toward Agua Verde in southern Sinaloa on October 11, the federal Security Cabinet reported. It was the second such find in the area in a week. The equipment matters because drones steered through a thin cable, rather than by radio, cannot be stopped by the signal jammers that militaries and police use against ordinary drones, a technique developed on the front lines in Ukraine. On October 13, though, Mexico's defense secretary, Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, said the 48 were not finished weapons. "They weren't complete drones, they were parts, material to assemble the drones, but they didn't have attachments for dropping explosive devices," he said at the president's morning press conference. Officials have not said which criminal group the equipment belonged to, and no one was arrested.
What was found
The first seizure, near El Rosario on October 4 or 5 (accounts differ on the date), turned up 15 FPV drones with 15 cable reels and 15 hand controllers, seven sets of virtual-reality goggles for piloting, three display screens and 14 batteries, along with 42 improvised explosive devices, three long guns and ammunition, according to the regional outlet Tribuna de México. FPV, for "first-person view," means the pilot flies the drone by watching a live camera feed through goggles or on a screen. The October 11 haul added 200 rounds of ammunition, drone accessories, 20 ballistic plates for body armor, six tactical vests and 16 tactical uniforms. In operations on October 9 to 11 elsewhere in southern Sinaloa, soldiers also seized six landmines in Concordia and 25 improvised explosives in the village of Cacalotán, the Rio Times reported, citing the Security Cabinet's statement. The material was turned over to federal prosecutors.
Why fiber-optic drones worry the military
A fiber-optic drone trails a hair-thin glass cable that carries both the pilot's commands and the video feed. Because it emits no radio signal, it is invisible to radio detectors and immune to jamming. The design was documented in the war in Ukraine in 2024, with cables reported at more than 10 kilometers long, and Milenio reports that such drones have also turned up in Lebanon, Colombia and Morocco. The cable makes each drone more expensive, so in Ukraine they have tended to be saved for high-value targets. In Mexico, cartels already fly commercial drones and adapt them to drop explosives on rivals and on security forces.
What the defense secretary added
Trevilla Trejo played down how advanced the latest haul was. He said the drones were not very sophisticated, that criminal groups "use commercial drones a lot and adapt them afterward to attack the other side or, many times, the authorities," and that he could not say whether the equipment belonged to Los Mayos or Los Chapos, the two Sinaloa Cartel factions fighting each other in the state. He said the use of drones by criminal groups concerns the armed forces nationwide, not only in Sinaloa, that the military has bought fixed and mobile anti-drone systems since 2025, including along the U.S. border, and that joint operations with the United States have sharply reduced drone attacks by criminal groups. Federal security officials are investigating how the fiber-optic technology entered the country, Tribuna de México reported.
Quotations from Spanish-language sources were translated by Profoundd. Sources: Infobae, October 13, 2026; Milenio, October 12; Telediario, October 12; Tribuna de México, October 9; Publimetro, October 8; The Rio Times, October 13.
