Private sector drones are coming

In Central America, there are currently at least five private security guards for every one police officer, possibly more depending on the statistics you use. What happens when there are five private security drones for every one that is used by police and military?

The cost for unmanned aerial vehicles has dropped rapidly in recent years. For less than $500, a person or company can obtain a drone capable of flying a preprogrammed track and taking video or photos. More money brings longer flying time, better imagery and other capabilities. While UAVs are currently only used by government forces, given the current costs, I think this trend will be visible in Latin America and the Caribbean within five years and considered a normal operation by some private firms within ten.

Private security companies will find numerous uses for drones. The first is imagery and video surveillance. They are going to use UAVs to monitor the areas they are protecting. They may also use them for mobile protection, following the vehicles of people they are guarding. They may also use them to track shipments in cargo trucks and ships in high crime areas.

The next step will be using UAVs for gathering intelligence on potential threats. That will be more controversial. They may also build UAVs with the potential to eavesdrop on conversations, break into wifi networks or jam the communications systems of bad guys.

The final and most controversial step would be any sort of weaponization of UAVs. I imagine that many countries will write laws to prohibit that sort of use, even if they allow companies to use them for video and photos.

Countries will also need to think through the monitoring and control of their airspace to prevent crashes or hazards above key locations.

The next evolution of semi-submersibles

Many US analysts, particularly in the military, point to the evolution of semi-submersibles for cocaine trafficking as one of the important trends in the past decade. At this point, they are starting to see the beginnings of fully submersible and self-contained submarines. It's a statement for how much money the criminals can make if they can build and lose subs.

So what's the next evolution? Asked that, my answer is weapons. I think in the next five years we will see some sort of weapons system on semi-subs and subs that are used by criminals. I don't think these will be highly technical torpedo systems, like exist on military subs. Rather, I think the criminal groups will start with some modification to a gun or grenade that allows the criminals to use them while inside the sub.

Could you imagine a system that allows them to float under a navy boat and release a grenade that rises to the surface and then explodes. Or one that allows them to fire guns at ships when they surface.

Right now, the crew of these vessels generally surrenders or runs as soon as they can, usually while simultaneously sinking the sub to lose the evidence. That's certainly a good problem to have compared to what may be next. If the criminals start innovating to fight back when they face capture, it create a new dynamic for the navies and coast guards of this hemisphere, one for which they are probably quite unprepared.

3d printers will change weapons trafficking

The technology behind 3d printing is becoming cheaper and more widely available. Within ten years, Latin American universities, businesses and governments should be able to have at least a basic 3d printer and those with money will get more advanced versions.

These printers will reshape manufacturing and medicine (a printer in Europe was recently used to create a new jaw for a patient; doctors are working on a printer that can print a new kidney). But, from the negative side, it's also going to completely reshape the weapons trafficking debate.

What happens when guns and gun parts can be printed locally rather than trafficked across borders? Certainly criminal groups will be able to afford printers that can manage metal or plastic objects that can serve as guns. While the cost will be quite expensive at first, eventually, it will be cheaper to print than smuggle.

For criminals, this could be a boom era. The parts of narcocultura that like to put designs and bling into their guns will get the opportunity to design their own. More seriously, they'll be able to manufacture parts that can easily convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons, perhaps a economically feasible first step for the use of 3d printing for the bad guys. They can also work to design better (more deadly) weapons once they become proficient with the technology.

Governments will attempt restrictions. They'll try to restrict the flow of information including files with gun designs that can be used by the printers. However, that will be nearly impossible. They'll try to restrict the printers and the specific "ink", materials preferred for gun manufacturing. But those restrictions will inhibit innovation and the criminals will find ways around them. They'll try to block ammunition sales, and in this they will only be as successful as they are today.

Police will need some sort of ballistics or forensics mechanism to not just tell which gun fired a bullet but which printer created the gun. One comparison may be to the fight against counterfeit money given better color printers today. There will be questions on the criminal charges people supplying the printers, materials and designs will face.

Then again, this could significantly reduce the cross-border trade in illegal firearms, which is itself a very profitable industry. That loss of profit could hit some criminal group's bottom lines. Could we see criminals sabotaging each other's printers to keep market share?