Four Cars Impacted In Mexico After Improvised Device Explodes In Sinaloa Law Enforcement Facility

An improvised device exploded outside a law enforcement facility in Sinaloa, damaging four cars, according to a new report.

Infobae noted that the device was thrown by a group of people into the parking lot. No people were injured, but it is the latest case in which law enforcement agencies are targeted with explosive devices.

Two incidents took place in October. One of them in Tijuana, when a cartel sent a drone to a police station in the city. Baja California Attorney General María Elena Andrade Ramírez confirmed that the station's anti-kidnapping unit was targeted.

"It was an attack directly on the patio of our installation," she said. "As a way to ease the public's mind, this was not an attempt on the residents, and we don't believe it has anything to do with our proximity to the border," Andrade Ramírez said, as reported by Border Report.

Concretely, three drones equipped with explosives, containing nails and pieces of metal, targeted the facility and damaged several police vehicles parked outside. No injuries were reported.

Earlier this year, a former operative for the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) said in an interview that the group modifies agricultural drones to drop explosives on rival factions.

Similarly, U.S. officials have warned about the growing number of drone sightings involving criminal groups.

Steven Willoughby, deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security's counter-drone program, told a U.S. Senate committee last month that cartel-operated drones conducted more than 27,000 flights within 500 meters of the southern border during the last six months of 2024.

"It's just a matter of time until Americans or law enforcement agents are targeted," Willoughby said, adding that cartel drones have been linked to more than 1,500 arrests along the southwest border.

Moreover, a recent report noted that drone attacks in Mexico more than doubled last year compared to the one prior as cartels increasingly use such devices in their operations.

Border Report noted that Mexico recorded 77 drone attacks last year, compared to 35 the year prior. Henry Ziemer, associate fellow for the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the outlet that cartels are buying signal jammers to guard themselves against attacks from rival factions.

"Mexico has been at the leading edge of illicit drone use not just as a weapon against the state and rivals, but also as a means of intimidating and pressuring the civilian population," the expert added.

In another passage of the piece, experts noted that cartels are recruiting teenagers to train them as surveillance and attack drone operators.