It is coming to light now among not only law enforcement but the inept politicians (finally), that at any one time some 100 to 200 cartel spotters are on hills and mountains in southern Arizona directing both vehicle borne loads and foot loads of drugs through the Sonoran desert. Cartel spotters will stay anywhere from a few days to a month or more on their hilltops, coordinating through radio and cell phones, to the loads trying to elude law enforcement. I have personally been on a few of these hills as you see in the video below. I have also personally seen these men being dropped off by helicopter in both daylight and night. Once on top of these hills they have a commanding view for miles in every direction. At these locations you will find camping equipment such as sleeping bags and coleman stoves. Canned food is stored there also as well as binoculars and solar panels to charge kenwood radios. We even know some of the frequencies they use but I won't mention them here. Also, some are equipped with a "hide" area which the spotter slides into to hide from law enforcement helicopters scanning the hills. Some of these helicopters are equipped with a thermal infrared camera which detects body heat. However, plastic defeats thermal by shielding the body heat from the camera. The spotter in this video built a semi circle wall of rocks high enough to be able to slide into it, then laid black plastic on top, then added another layer of rocks to hold down the plastic. Then fresh vegetation was added to camouflage the plastic. If a helicopter came by to see if anybody is on the hill, the spotter just slides down into the hide to wait until the helicopter leaves. No need for high tech applications when you are spotting. Binoculars work just fine during the day and at night, law enforcement vehicles are well lit up to give the spotters miles of notice that law enforcement is in the area and the spotter will redirect the drug traffic or tell the load to hold up and wait until law enforcement departs the area. Very simple! This video is from one such location. Took one hour and forty five minutes to climb this hill. Rattlesnakes and loose rock were present the whole time. Spotters also leaves piles of garbage around which means thousands of flies will be present to annoy you while you are up there.
Now a news organization has finally done a few video reports on this. This report was with DEA on the Tohono O'Odham reservation where some of the most used spotter locations are located.
Here is the link. These are good reports with excellent explanations from the DEA agents on how the spotters operate.
Located below are a few pictures from what we have found on these hilltops. First picture is of a spotter location close to the border that has a small cave in it. Second pic is from a hill over 35 miles north of the border. Notice the binoculars on the rocks on the left. Also note the plastic for the roof of the hide.
Next pic is from a smaller hill that only took a few minutes to climb but notice the rocks marker on the southern side of the hill.
This last picture is one of the solar panels we found with a kenwood radio charger.
These spotters are mostly living in this country working for the cartels. They have their observation posts and are resupplied on a regular basis. Most likely they are armed with at least a handgun. I have not heard any reports of spotters getting into shootouts with law enforcement or border watch groups yet. The way the spotters operate are almost the same way our special ops forces operate in the mountains of Afghanistan where they create a "hide" and observation post and report on enemy combatant troop movements but do not engage the enemy.
The spotters goal is to keep law enforcement away from the drug load until the load is out of his area of operation and passed on to the next spotter. Then he will arrange pickup or hike down the hill and through the desert home until his next shift. When we find these hills, we document them on maps but do not disturb what is on the hill as we do not want the spotters to know we were there.
