Here's all the high-tech gear cartels use to sneak drugs into the US
Private radio networks allow for encrypted communication.
Submarines carry tens of thousands of pounds of drugs across the border.
"Narcos are early adopters of robotics," Goodman said. "Narco subs were, for many years, carrying tons of tons of kilos of cocaine and landing on the shores of Mexico."
According to a US Foreign Military Studies Office report, 80% of the drugs smuggled into the US from Mexico were done via a maritime route, 30% of which coming on narco submarines. Submarines have been caught carrying as much as 7.5 tons of cocaine. The one you see above is a semi-submersible submarine that had 7 tons of cocaine when caught in 2009.
The submarines are fairly sophisticated, also. Cartels will build them with lead so they can't be detected using infrared, and because they sit below the water it's difficult to spot them with radar or sonar.
The submarines are bound to get more sophisticated too.
"Those will go autonomous, so of course they'll have autonomous underwater vehicles to transport narcotics," Goodman explained.
No one has discovered a submarine transporting drugs autonomously, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And if it doesn't exist, it will soon, Goodman said.
Drones fly drugs across the border.
This is something that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has seen and will continue to see as drone tech improves, Goodman said.
There have been many instances of drones getting caught attempting to smuggle drugs across the border, like the one that was caught carrying 28 pounds of heroine in August 2015. Border patrol said in April that they've seen a growing number of drones carrying drugs across the border, Fox News reported.
But it's not just drones flying drugs across the border, ultralight planes with very quiet engines are getting the job done too.
A 2014 California Attorney General Report describe the aircrafts as three-wheeled vehicles that use hang-gliders and single-propeller engines to fly. They can fly over 70 miles per hour. The report said there were 200 incidents involving ultralight aircraft and drug smuggling since 2008, when the first eight sightings were reported.
The US Department of Homeland Security is trying to use its own drones to monitor the border, but cartels are using tech to even get around that.
Cartels are spoofing the drones Homeland Security is using, meaning that they are able to counterfeit the GPS signal used to navigate the drones. Cartels are also doing something called jamming, which is when they jam the GPS signal. This makes it so drones can't figure out their own location and altitude causing them to eventually crash.
Cartels also set up cameras to keep tabs on the police and military.
The Gulf Cartel set up 39 cameras recording 59 different vantage points for that very purpose, Fusion reported. The cameras were controlled via WiFi and had a modem, video data encoder and memory card.
Military-grade rockets are used for defense.
Mexican drug cartels are known to use rocket launchers for defense. When a Mexican SWAT team stopped a car belonging to a cartel in 2012, they found three Soviet-made antitank rockets complete and an RPG-7 shoulder-fired launcher, Time reported.
And some cartels like Zeta are even building their own tanks.
Cartels have done everything from retrofitting dump trucks with steel to make tanks to building tanks with armored turrets and weapon bays on the side. Some are even equipped with battery rams to plow through traffic.
Goodman said he even expects cartels will use autonomous cars.
"They could use crude autonomous vehicles where they would auto rig a car to drive a few 100 yards with a bomb embedded in it," he said.
As driverless technology improves, it only makes sense that it would cartels might try to use it as well.
"We’ve wired the world but failed to secure it," Goodman added.
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