Last week, The New York Times reported that President Trump issued a directive authorizing the Department of Defense (DoD) to conduct direct military operations against certain Latin American drug cartels designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Shortly afterward, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected the presence of U.S. military forces on her soil. However, it appears Mexico has not opposed the presence of U.S. spy drones in the skies over cartel territory.
Several open source intelligence analysts on X have posted flight tracking data of a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper spy drone operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that flew deep into Mexico on Wednesday morning.
According to a viral X post by OSINTdefender, the MQ-9B, using the call sign TROY701, "was orbiting for several hours earlier today to the west of Mexico City, near the Valle de Bravo Reservoir in the State of Mexico."
(The Houthis shot down lots of Reaper drones. The Cartels might give them some money to find out how they did it. The Iranians hacked a drone during the Obama years which they landed and used it to make drones of their own)