Mexican cartels sending members to Ukraine - as intelligence warns drug gangs use drone schools to grow their empires

Intelligence officials in Mexico have warned Ukrainian counterparts that cartel foot soldiers are infiltrating Ukraine’s International Legion - but not to take out Russian soldiers.

Instead, the drug gang members have reportedly been picking up drone flying skills, mastering how to control them to help with their own arms race back on home soil.

A memo from Mexico’s National Intelligence Center revealed that Spanish-speaking volunteers in Ukraine’s foreign battalions have deliberately targeted Ukraine’s so-called Kill House Academy, a drone flying school hidden in a derelict factory in western Ukraine.

One soldier who noticeably excelled in training was dubbed Aguila 7 (Eagle 7).

He was enlisted with Ukraine’s International Legion but was later revealed to have come from the Los Zetas drug cartel in Mexico, according to French outlet Intelligence Online’s investigation.

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The soldier was also previously a member of Mexico’s special forces - now a common theme amid a growing militarisation among the cartels as they recruit more ex-policemen and former soldiers,

One drone - the fly first-person view (FPV) kamikaze drones -  give pilots a bird’s-eye view of the target as they close in with an explosive payload, The weapon has been hailed as a game-changer for Ukrainian troops, but they are reportedly being used in Mexico’s drug wars too.

Gangs including the Sinaloa cartel and the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación have been using them in west-central Mexico, according to the Atlantic Council.

Footage shared online appears to show Mexican gangs flying drones and using them to launch explosives.

Meanwhile, some cartel “narco-tanks” have been adapted with protective cages to fend off drone strikes—mirroring a tactic  used by both Russian and Ukrainian forces, it adds.

“Ukraine has become a platform for the global dissemination of FPV tactics,” a security official in Kyiv told Intelligence Online.

The exact number of Mexican henchmen who have travelled to Ukraine for drone “training” is unknown.

But it has prompted policy experts to warn security officials in the US, who have been urged to “evolve treating cartels as criminal and terrorist organizations, instead combating them as “narco-multinational corporations” (narco-MNC).”

“Their adoption of military-grade tactics—combined with terrorist-style violence—demands a whole-of-government approach that blends law enforcement, defense, and intelligence tools,” said Stephen Honan, a fellow from the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project.

It comes after Donald Trump wrote in a White House memo that the United States has entered into a "non-international armed conflict" and that drug cartels operating in the Caribbean are “unlawful combatants”.

The document labels cartel members as "unlawful combatants" whose actions "constitute an armed attack against the United States".

It reportedly says: "The cartels involved have grown more armed, well-organized, and violent."

"They have the financial means, sophistication, and paramilitary capabilities needed to operate with impunity."