Features | Security | Southeast Asia

The Proliferation of Illicit Drones in Southeast Asia

The past two years have seen the growing use of off-the-shelf commercial drones for criminal and militant activities.

A DJI FPV drone photographed at a retail electronics store in Nagoya, Japan, May 22, 2021.

Drones have become synonymous with modern-day warfare. Recent conflict theaters in Russia-Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, parts of the Sahel, and the Middle East have witnessed the heavy use of drones, and the Russia-Ukraine war in particular has been a crucible of innovation in this regard. Southeast Asia has not been immune to the use of drones, which have been used widely in conflicts such as the 2017 Marawi siege, the Myanmar conflict since 2021, and the Thailand-Cambodia border conflict last year.

Beyond their use in conflict, the region has seen a steady increase in the illicit use of drones primarily involving commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) consumer drones (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Illicit drone trends in Southeast Asia over time. (Chart by Rueben Dass)

Criminal and terrorist networks have begun adopting this tactic due in part to the media attention given to drones, the accessibility of these systems (particularly COTS drones), and the relatively low barriers to entry with regard to their usage. This article provides a brief overview of illicit drone use in Southeast Asia with the aim of highlighting current trends that may then be beneficial for developing targeted countermeasures in the region.

The analysis below is based on 22 illicit drone incidents as reported by the media up to August 2026, excluding the use of drones in conflict zones. Due to the open-source nature of the data, the analysis may be subject to reporting bias and could possibly be an under-representation of the actual phenomenon.

The major proportion of illicit drone use in the region – around 86 percent – has been linked to criminal activity. Of these, narcotics-related activity associated with prison incursions and cross-border smuggling has been the highest (Figure 2).

In August 2024, a commercial quadcopter drone was used to smuggle narcotics into the Tapah prison, the first recorded incident of illicit drone use in Malaysia. The Malaysian Home Ministry noted that there were 55 cases of drones being used to smuggle narcotics into prisons that year. Drones have also been used to smuggle other contraband into Malaysian prisons, with two individuals being apprehended for attempting to use a DJI Air 2S drone to smuggle tobacco into the Sungai Udang Prison in Malacca in July 2026. A similar case occurred in Machang prison in Kelantan in 2025.

In June 2025, a drone was used to smuggle drugs into a Class IIA Narcotics Prison in Bandung, West Java. Transactions were made between the buyer (an inmate) and the seller via social media. Similar incidents were recorded in Sragen Prison in 2023 and Nusa Kambangan in 2019, as well as at prisons in the Philippines.

Figure 2: Breakdown of recent illicit drone incidents in Southeast Asia by type of illicit activity. (Chart by Rueben Dass)

Aside from prison incursions, narcotics have also featured prominently alongside drones in cross-border smuggling and illicit sales. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has reported that small commercial drones are increasingly being employed for cross-border smuggling of narcotics, particularly along the Malaysia-Thailand, Thailand-Myanmar and Thailand-Laos borders. In June 2020, Singapore and Malaysian authorities dismantled a drug-smuggling syndicate that was using a COTS drone to smuggle narcotics from Malaysia into Singapore.

Larger drones have also been linked to cross-border smuggling syndicates. In June 2025, two large hexacopter drones were found buried in Sadao district, Songkhla, Thailand. The drones were linked to three Chinese nationals who were allegedly involved in a narcotics syndicate. In Vietnam, a couple was apprehended for using a DJI quadcopter drone to deliver drugs and collect payments from buyers. Apart from delivery mechanisms, narcotics syndicates are also using drones to monitor the movements of law enforcement agents and evade detection.

Thailand has reported at least three major seizures of drones and drone-related parts over the last two years. A December 2025 raid on a warehouse in the 2nd Army Area led to the seizure of 2,500 drones that were believed to have been smuggled into the country, while a March 2026 raid on two warehouses in Lat Krabang outside Bangkok led to the seizure of 2,083 drones that were smuggled in and illicitly re-sold on social media platforms. In August 2025, Thai authorities raided another warehouse in Samut Prakan allegedly linked to a Singaporean company, where numerous drones, signal jamming devices, and a van with signal-disrupting equipment were found.

The possibility that some of these networks were linked to cross-border drone trafficking and smuggling syndicates cannot be ruled out. The December 2025 raid was followed by the arrest of four Myanmar nationals in a hotel near Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok. They were suspected of trafficking 10 Chinese drones into Myanmar to be resold to the country’s military junta. The drones were to be dismantled and transported across the border in parts on commercial passenger flights. The drones seized were large industrial multi-rotor drones.

In July 2026, another Myanmar national who was attempting to smuggle four first-person view (FPV) drones and other drone components across the border to Myanmar was arrested in Mae Sot, in Tak province, on Thailand’s border with Myanmar. The drones were “advanced systems” suitable for military applications and had originated in Chiang Mai. The end-user for the drones was not identified. A year earlier, a one-way attack drone with an explosive warhead believed to have belonged to the Myanmar military was found in the same province.

The use of drones by non-state armed groups (NSAGs) in Myanmar has been well-documented in several academic studies. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Centre documented more than 2,100 drone strikes by NSAGs across more than 600 distinct locations in Myanmar, noting it had “significantly reshaped battlefield strategy” by 2024. The junta has increased its reliance on airstrikes since late 2023, closing the gap in drone use with NSAGs. Illicit trafficking and smuggling networks through neighboring countries, as mentioned above, may be playing a role in helping both NSAGs and the military circumvent export controls on dual-use materials by China. U.K.-based Conflict Armament Research found........

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