Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
wired.com
Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
1–10 of 64 posts
Re: Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
#2$100 million on censors?
How about legalize some of the softer drugs they are flying so it becomes less profitable for them to carry out such operations in the first place?
Re: Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
#3$100 million on censors? How about legalize some of the softer drugs they are flying so it becomes less profitable for them to carry out such operations in the first place?
Why not legalize all of the drugs? We've proven that we can't stop people from using drugs. What advantage is there in ensuring that the billions spent on drugs gets funneled into the hands of hardened criminals?
Re: Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
#4Ultralights, not UAVs. The picture of the downed ultralight clearly has a pilot seat and instrumentation.
The only place UAV is mentioned in the article is an editorial addition to a quote from the sensor vendor "[unmanned aerial vehicles]". If you follow the link to the vendor site, you will find the vendor advertises their sensor as an adjunct to "unmanned aerial systems", i.e. the boarder patrol's UAVs, not the smuggler's UAVs.
[edit] My bad, the vendor does say it's system can track bad guy's UASes, although I still object to the sensationalizing of the HN headline vs. the Wired article that talks almost exclusively about ultralights.
Re: Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
#5$100 million on censors? How about legalize some of the softer drugs they are flying so it becomes less profitable for them to carry out such operations in the first place?
Why not legalize all of the drugs? We've proven that we can't stop people from using drugs. What advantage is there in ensuring that the billions spent on drugs gets funneled into the hands of hardened criminals?
Imagine our elected representatives trying to come up with laws, regulations, tax policies, public health issues (think big tabacco), arrests (there are currently many more alcohol related arrests than drug related arrests).
Not saying that this isn't something that shouldn't be considered, just pointing out that it isn't without cost.
Re: Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
#6$100 million on censors? How about legalize some of the softer drugs they are flying so it becomes less profitable for them to carry out such operations in the first place?
The economies of scale are crazy as well.
the US government spends $100 million on sensors yet the catels stand to make (if you can believe the figures) "$16 million wholesale" for one shipment of cocaine via this method.
The drug cartels stand to make more selling drugs than the US government spent trying to stop them in merely 7 trips with an ultralight
Re: Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
#7Ultralights, not UAVs. The picture of the downed ultralight clearly has a pilot seat and instrumentation. The only place UAV is mentioned in the article is an editorial addition to a quote from the sensor vendor "[unmanned aerial vehicles]". If you follow the link to the vendor site, you will find the vendor advertises their sensor as an adjunct to "unmanned aerial systems", i.e. the boarder patrol's UAVs, not the sm…
I caught that as well. Still costs less to put a sacrificial mule in the driver seat than to automate them. A long time ago when Georgia Tech was flying GPS guided helicopters in the UAV contests I wondered just how much it would cost to build a drug mule like that. Should be pretty trivial, drop via GPS and you don't need human pilots. Of course if you get spotted a human can abort back over the border but a robot will lead the follower to the drop point.
Re: Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
#8$100 million on censors? How about legalize some of the softer drugs they are flying so it becomes less profitable for them to carry out such operations in the first place?
The economies of scale are crazy as well. the US government spends $100 million on sensors yet the catels stand to make (if you can believe the figures) "$16 million wholesale" for one shipment of cocaine via this method. The drug cartels stand to make more selling drugs than the US government spent trying to stop them in merely 7 trips with an ultralight
$16 million is revenue, not profit, but I agree the scale is amazing. I know the price of cocaine in America is thousands of times more than straight out of the lab in Columbia. I wonder how big of a cut each group takes from the massive profit as it works it's way to America...
Re: Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
The economies of scale are crazy as well. the US government spends $100 million on sensors yet the catels stand to make (if you can believe the figures) "$16 million wholesale" for one shipment of cocaine via this method. The drug cartels stand to make more selling drugs than the US government spent trying to stop them in merely 7 trips with an ultralight
$16 million is revenue, not profit, but I agree the scale is amazing. I know the price of cocaine in America is thousands of times more than straight out of the lab in Columbia. I wonder how big of a cut each group takes from the massive profit as it works it's way to America...
You can get Columbian coffee for $7/pound in a grocery store in the US. It can't be that much different in the raw manufacturing costs.
Re: Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs
#10Ultralights, not UAVs. The picture of the downed ultralight clearly has a pilot seat and instrumentation. The only place UAV is mentioned in the article is an editorial addition to a quote from the sensor vendor "[unmanned aerial vehicles]". If you follow the link to the vendor site, you will find the vendor advertises their sensor as an adjunct to "unmanned aerial systems", i.e. the boarder patrol's UAVs, not the sm…
I caught that as well. Still costs less to put a sacrificial mule in the driver seat than to automate them. A long time ago when Georgia Tech was flying GPS guided helicopters in the UAV contests I wondered just how much it would cost to build a drug mule like that. Should be pretty trivial, drop via GPS and you don't need human pilots. Of course if you get spotted a human can abort back over the border but a robot w…
http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/
I wonder how complicated it would be to adapt that to a larger craft.