Drone Captures Images of Mexican Drug Cartel Camp

This is the fifth and final article in a series on illegal drug and human smuggling along Arizona’s border with Mexico.

ARIVACA, Ariz.—The first gunshots seemed to come down the mountain on the other side of Arizona’s border fence with Mexico, just east of Arivaca, where rival drug cartel factions battle to the death for supremacy.

Sam, my security guide, listened closely as more shots rang out.

They were hunters, no doubt, though not the kind you would typically expect.

“Where exactly do you think the shots are coming from?” I asked Sam nervously from the back seat of his pickup truck.

“I think they’re to the right,” Sam said, focused on the nearest mountain. “They could be on top of that big peak as well.”

It’s not as if we were invisible, clambering noisily up the winding dirt fire road in the border zone known as the California Gulch, part of the Coronado National Forest in southern Arizona.

Our arrival in Sam’s gargantuan white Chevy Silverado on the sweltering morning of Aug. 25 was about as clandestine as a bullhorn in a public library.

“They could be warning shots”—for us, Sam said. “But this is where they’re coming. Right here.”

Sam is the pseudonym he uses to conceal his identity and that of his security company in Arizona. He’s been threatened by the Sinaloa Cartel for conducting border-watching activities. He now fears for the safety of his employees and family.

Actual drone still footage shows a Mexican drug cartel faction (red dot) camped out just over the U.S. border near Arivaca, Ariz., on Aug. 25. (Courtesy of a private Arizona security company)

Below our position, the unfinished Trump border wall and fence stretched east and west for miles, then abruptly stopped. On the U.S. side of the border, cattle grazed

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases