10. Tire punchers

Tire punchers are included on this list despite their basic nature, particularly when it comes to state-building. Cartels have turned the tables on the police, who can utilize them to prevent you from escaping. To throw off their pursuers and send them careening out of control, they’ll resort to dropping spikes from tubes atop modified cars.

Ponchallatas are the name for these spikes, which can be rather intricate. One usually points up since some of them are simply sharp nails together like jacks. On the other hand, you can get ones that are made of sheet metal and even feature holes and spikes that allow for maximum tire deflation.

Ponchallantas are most commonly linked to the southern region of Texas, where the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas are based. They stopped police 80 times between 2008 and 2013 by using tire punchers.

9. Unmanned aerial vehicles

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel dropped explosives on Michoacan police personnel in 2021 using drones. A cup was used as a parachute, and each drone had a remote-controlled hook that carried a container with plastic explosives and ball bearings.

Filmed for web transmission, drone bombings are just as much a sign of strength and status as anything else.

Aside from transporting minor amounts of drugs, drones are typically only utilized for spying on competitors and law enforcement.

8. Storage containers

The “monstruo,” a narco-tank with gun turrets, battering rams, and four inches of thick steel plate armor, is another weapon of the road that Los Zetas pioneered. They pose a severe threat to the state, and some of them are custom-built while others are modified pickups. Actually, thanks to their modern camouflage, they look just like Mexican army tanks (which is fitting considering the amount of special forces members recruited to Los Zetas). They seem impervious to the police’s attempts to subdue them.

Rhinoceroses, or rhinocerontes, have gained popularity among many cartels, and one reason is because they serve as status symbols; consequently, the practice of engraving initials on their shells (e.g., CJNG for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel) is widespread.

Despite the fact that cartel mechanics are pocketing almost two million pesos ($117,000) for each monster, their numbers have skyrocketed. While forty had been confiscated across the country as of 2015, 260 had been confiscated in the state of Tamaulipas alone since 2019.

7. Rocket launchers and cannons

Traditional methods can still be effective at times. Smugglers have been caught shooting narcotics over the border barrier in order to get them over. It was actually equipped with a “medieval-style” catapult that could launch weapons up to 300 meters in the air. Smuggling opium into Iran is a strategy that is also employed in Afghanistan.

Cartels in Mexico also use compressed air cannons, which are faster and have a greater range (about 700 meters at 300 mph). Even if it’s not perfect, it can be used as a backup plan in cases where other supply channels are blocked.

6. Underground passageways

The 2015 jail break of drug lord El Chapo, who embarrassed the Mexican government, involved a subterranean tunnel. The mile-long tunnel was an engineering marvel, complete with lighting, air conditioning, and a motorcycle riding on rails.

However, smugglers frequently employs narco-tunnels. Of course, no one knows for sure how many there are, but in the past few decades, authorities have seized 15 of them.

A particularly remarkable one extended 35 feet below ground, connecting Tijuana and San Diego, enabling enormous quantities of narcotics to pass undetected beneath one of the most heavily protected sections of the United States border wall.

5. Covert Jets

More planes than the Mexican Air Force had in service were confiscated from drug cartels between 2006 and 2011. Over two thousand unofficial airfields were also leveled by them. The majority of these planes are Cessnas and similar single-engine high-wing aircraft, which are well-suited for landing on desert and gravel roads. Some have been modified with features like large tires for landing on rocks or metal plates under the nose to shield engines from gravel.

However, ultralight aircraft that fly at low altitudes are being employed more and more to avoid radar detection. From below, they resemble motorized hang gliders adorned with steel baskets for drug transportation—if anyone spots them at all. They typically fly at night unaided by lights and are painted black. Pilots disembark their cargo at light-up drop zones after donning night vision goggles or following major road routes. They can stay in the air for longer than other ultralights thanks to their larger fuel tanks.

Even though ultralights can’t carry nearly as much weight as heavier planes, authorities can’t lawfully shoot them down.

4. Claws

It becomes more difficult for the state to exert control when you produce all of your own goods. In particular, guns are better made in-house from a cartel’s point of view. However, they aren’t simple. The level of complexity of the weapon manufacturing that was uncovered in Jalisco shocked the authorities. The Attorney General said that it was concealed between two farmhouses and contained “very precise software” and “highly sophisticated machinery” that allowed cartel armorers to create untraceable AR-15 parts from raw aluminum blocks.

However, they also mix and match parts from assault rifles that are imported from the US.

If gunsmiths aren’t currently using 3D printing, it’s believed they will be soon.

3. Submersibles

Putting aside ultra-luxury underwater superyachts, submarines are typically associated with states or the military. People seldom ever utilize them. However, in 2019, a fiberglass submarine was scuttled in Spain after four weeks at sea, with a crew of three—an amateur boxer and two relatives from Ecuador. The 21.5-meter submersible, which was part of the Colombian Gulf Clan cartel, had gone 3,500 miles from an Amazonian shipyard with three tons of coke on board.

The ship was in terrible condition. The cabin was somewhat small because most of the room was reserved for fuel and cargo. There was a lot of noise, darkness, and odor. Energy bars, rice, and sardines were the crew’s staples; they pooped into trash bags and worried about their health, betrayal, and leaks at all times.

The revolutionary moniker “Che” came from the fact that it was the first narco-sub to reach European waters.

2. Monitoring

You can only go so far with unrestricted trade and military might. You need eyes and ears everywhere when you’re fighting the state; you also need to know what it’s doing.

Cartels in Mexico keep tabs on their rivals by establishing covert CCTV networks that they attach to the telephone poles owned by their opponents. There are intelligence agencies within each cartel, but whether or not they are coordinated by a narco-NSA is unknown. For example, the Ciclones are a “intelligence and command and control faction” within the Gulf Cartel in Reynosa. In 2015, authorities found 39 of their cameras and turned them off, believing they were managed “via an encrypted and anonymized system”. They were able to see civilian and military regions, police stations, the attorney general’s office, and other government and military structures clearly while they were active.

An additional form of monitoring is employed at the US border. In 2011, during the peak of the “drug war,” as many as 300 scouts from the cartels were stationed on hills and in mountaintop surveillance posts, often known as “spider holes,” to monitor the whereabouts of government officers. The information was transmitted to ground traffickers over an encrypted radio network that had been set up by the kidnapped engineers.

1. Disinformation

Simply said, you can’t get around the law; you must replace it. Gather support from the general public. Cartels, following the lead of the state, propagandize children, and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in particular uses TikTok to attract young, idealistic recruits. Images of exotic pets, criminals dancing, large sums of money, assault weapons, tanks, automobiles, and poppy fields accompanied with daring airdrops and speedboat chases in the style of Grand Theft Auto set to lively Mexican music glorify the lifestyle of the cartels. Not only in Mexico, but all over the globe, the videos receive millions of views. TikTok makes efforts to remove the films, yet there is still a significant demand for them. As a result, there is an endless supply of enthusiastic youths. Additionally, it seeps into the mainstream of popular culture through Netflix shows like Narcos.

Cartels in Mexico adopt infowar strategies that are similar to those of the Mexican government. For instance, kidnappings and murders of editors and journalists critical of cartels force others to restrain themselves. Press releases by cartels are passed off as news by many media sources these days. Even if it’s biased in favor of the cartels, there are instances when it’s actually newsworthy, such when it exposes state human rights abuses.

Narcocorridos, which are folk music or ballads that glorify cartels, graffiti, social media, banners, protests, and fliers are among other forms of propaganda.

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