There is this confusion over the word “drone”.

What you say is absolutely true about quadrocopters and octocopters. It is much less true about fixed wing drones.

You don’t have to go all the way to a Global Hawk to get reasonable carrying capacity. Even hobby sized stuff could be used for this reasonably well. Parts are easy to acquire, they are easy to conceal, you can launch them with a catapult like setup, they can drop off their load and fly back autonomously.

I bet that it is already happening or at least there are smugglers experimenting with the tech.

The Spanish police found a drone that had made trips from North Africa just a few months back.

It was a hybrid fixed wing drone that could carry 150Kg.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyvwmv/look-at-this-huge-dru...

If your target country has a large coast, there are submarine drones already https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine

> you can launch them with a catapult like setup, they can drop off their load and fly back autonomously.

This had me thinking about homemade disposable rockets. Either use them for cargo, or attach one to a strong enough glider, so that it can reach the desired area, release the glider (that can use maps + GPS and sensors to land safely) then proceed for a while fooling whoever would follow its heat trail.

Not that I wanted to become a drug smuggler, just brainstorming. We will need all that stuff when the next reptilian invasion occurs:^)

iirc theres a fixed wing drone ccaught by lea at mexico(?) right?

Check out pro broadcasting drones. They can carry 3-5kg cameras with power packs. Some go as far as 1h fly time. They are expensive as hell though.

My company owns one, the same make as the one that shot the dragon battle scene in game of thrones. It's a single rotor, and you're right on with the specs. It's not super expensive though, about as expensive as a high end luxury car. Definitely out of range of most consumers, but not crazy for a small business to have. You also need a small team to operate it, and because of its weight there's more aviation regulation applicable, at least here in Europe.

I'm sure the premium charged by broadcasting drone sellers has more to do with stabilizing drones even during manoeuvering than it has to do with maximizing payload and range. Drones used in broadcasting can do pit stops pretty much at will.

> Their carry weight is absolute shit

In the case of the mule, the carry weight is relative to shit.

Unless you have a thousand drones. If any one drone gets taken out then you just lost a negligible quantity of product. If a traditional mule is caught you lose millions. A single bust would pay for a fleet of drones.

it has to be doable with cartel money; there is at least one startup doing drone delivery in Africa: https://flyzipline.com/

That's why they like Fentanyl, Carfentanyl, etc... a lethal dose weight almost nothing.