Rio Grande, TX - Feds: Cartel turns to radio waves to avoid police detection

[Thunderbolt]

RIO GRANDE, Texas - The Gulf Cartel and the Zetas have established a sophisticated radio communications network that stretches hundreds of miles and has stymied recent law enforcement advances in monitoring cellular phones, according to court documents obtained Monday.

Feds: Cartel turns to radio waves to avoid police detection | cartel, radio, hundreds - Now - TheMonitor.com

[soncorn]

Pretty neat actually. But I have a hard time believing the Feds cannot monitor it, even if it has sophisticated encryption.

[GTO_04]

The article did not specifically mention encryption, but the feds could monitor the cartel's encrypted communications, as long as the cartel to provides them with the encryption key.

You have to admire their efficiency, building new towers where necessary and also using existing infrastructure.

So did they go with Motorola or MA/COM?

GTO_04

[cifd64]

Is MRA providing the network?

[loumaag]

Originally Posted by cifd64

Is MRA providing the network?

Hmm, good question.

[Lynch_Christopher]

Sounds impressive. I was surprised by the quote saying that the radio network exceed the capability of the federal law enforcement monitoring by several years.

[chrismol1]

Originally Posted by Lynch_Christopher

Sounds impressive. I was surprised by the quote saying that the radio network exceed the capability of the federal law enforcement monitoring by several years.

Yes, the cartels were most likely using 1 watt bubble pack radios. Exceeding the .5 watt dick tracy wrist watch radios the fed network has
I'd like to know what their network consisted of. Repeaters ain't new, so what makes it exceed the capability of the feds by several years?

[i_galbreath]

This explains why none of the M/A Com systems in the US aren't getting done...

[idontknow82]

I like that its getting flung right back in law enforcements faces.

[RADIOGUY2002]

This is kinda funny

Years and years of watching law enforcement using radios (nextel, etc) and this comes as a huge surprise. To be honest with everyone this does not surprise me and supports the highest bidder concept of business. The M/A Comm is a nice pun, but not that really of a stretch. They said patched network, on veering frequencies setup like repeaters or up / down links. A few study guides and utilizing ham guides and you got a structure setup pretty fast. Making it also very field deploy able, which is great for fast comms in a hurry, and since nextel's are pretty easy for disposable use you have the infrastructure already in play and short term costs.

Hmm, tuff call 2,000 g's for a repeater for about 25 miles up to 35 miles with limited height, that like candy money to the cartel, with a coms tech savvy guy on broad for 100k and you got some pretty skilled and clear based systems.

[milf]

Using already in place infrastructure.. Cells towers, TV Towers, and mexican government radio sites.. which are paid out of cash of course to have turned backs... A nice simple SS/FH with encryption.... With all the available technologies out there, not that hard to set up with the money. The only high tech to break it would be military or CIA/NSA, and they really dont play nice with FBI/DEA unless you prove to them its a matter of say terrorism.... We know they use sat phones also... Add in interconnect with that.... Sound like what most US public safety is trying to set up??? LOL Of course this adds fuel to the lets encrypt everything fires...

[RADIOGUY2002]

yes, it does.

[KB0VWG]

I Geuss I need to start listening to more freqs but I think I need to work on my spanish first. Good artical

[GTO_04]

Originally Posted by milf

Using already in place infrastructure.. Cells towers, TV Towers, and mexican government radio sites.. which are paid out of cash of course to have turned backs... A nice simple SS/FH with encryption.... With all the available technologies out there, not that hard to set up with the money. The only high tech to break it would be military or CIA/NSA, and they really dont play nice with FBI/DEA unless you prove to them its a matter of say terrorism.... We know they use sat phones also... Add in interconnect with that.... Sound like what most US public safety is trying to set up??? LOL Of course this adds fuel to the lets encrypt everything fires...

Except that encryption didn't really help the feds much here. If anything it would help the drug cartel if they implemented it for their own system.

GTO_04

[tekshogun]

That's crazy but I can understand it "exceeding" law enforcement's capabilities granted that most people tasked with monitoring radio traffic like that would be the FCC, military, NSA/CIA, ham radio operators (that are good at that fox hunting sort of thing), and a handful of other radio professionals. Law enforcement understands THEIR radios, the ones they use for work and they understand cellphones in that MOST people committing crimes are eventually going to use one in the commission of those crimes. Plus, when it comes to repeaters, if you do not know a repeater is in play (and granted encryption is not being used), a monitoring station may only hear one half of a conversation. It's hard to listen in on an inter-geographical radio network if you don't know how it is setup.

[RADIOGUY2002]

Interesting perspective, most of the time its stumbling upon the un-expected and finding the users or operators that exist on the bandwidth. This all depends on your interest in the hobby, or if you have a limited technical bases and have lots of free time to read up on things, making yourself educated. This is what happens when the economy is the way it is you start teaching yourself new things and looking for things to listen too.

Just like watching to much history channel... as oppose to bad television.

[tekshogun]

Heh heh, I've learned a lot about the world thanks to Discovery and History (at least back before the reality shows started taking up most of the airtime).

I bet some of those minutemen down there on the border are ham radio operators or at least radio enthusiast and carry some gear with them and of course many others in the area I'm sure scan the frequencies like the rest of us and if they stumble on something obviously illegal, they'll do something about it (such as report it to the authorities). That is probably how a lot of major case breaks occur, stumbling.

[APTN]

Originally Posted by tekshogun

Law enforcement understands THEIR radios, the ones they use for work and they understand cellphones in that MOST people committing crimes are eventually going to use one in the commission of those crimes. Plus, when it comes to repeaters, if you do not know a repeater is in play (and granted encryption is not being used), a monitoring station may only hear one half of a conversation. It's hard to listen in on an inter-geographical radio network if you don't know how it is setup.

Not to start a bashing thread, but Law Enforcement understanding radios is a broad statement. I've known some who only know push to talk, release to listen, and then I've known some who actually have participated in the development of conventional and trunked systems. Anyways, I would think the Feds would have (or be able to contract with) persons with the knowledge to combat criminals with technology.

[tekshogun]

Originally Posted by APTN

Not to start a bashing thread, but Law Enforcement understanding radios is a broad statement. I've known some who only know push to talk, release to listen, and then I've known some who actually have participated in the development of conventional and trunked systems. Anyways, I would think the Feds would have (or be able to contract with) persons with the knowledge to combat criminals with technology.

I was not bashing at all. I meant no disrespect to law enforcement in general at all. Not to try and save face with credentials but I know, very well, several police officers and other law enforcement personnel (and former) as well as those that work as support for LE, that are or were in the position to make great strides and progress when it came to radio, especially being that some are ham radio operators and have had their hands in wireless telecommunications longer than I've been alive so they've been a part of the development of trunked, digital, encrypted, and even interoperability systems. With that said, my intent was to establish that in most cases, criminals are not using radios being that cellphones and landlines are the first obvious means of communication to LE to find and monitor (and for criminals to use). When they do establish the fact that radios are in use, those investigative teams typically are not prepared to intercept and as you stated they typically need to turn to more specialized teams from their agencies or go to an outside source. That often takes time to get into position. If these investigators were given training and equipment (such as a scanner with a feature to stalk a signal they can "get on the ground running" instead of waiting for someone else to do it.

[milf]

Not to mention that with some systems, the only way to crack in is to get help from the manufacturer of the type of system used. Once you determine the type, flavor, and "guts" of a network, then you start with serious working on it. That takes time itself, if its not a simple say Motorola Type I, II, IIi, EDACS, or LTR... SS.FH systems are very hard to break, as are systems using the newer encryptions, and digital formats other than the ones that are in everyday use here in the states. Lets say you set up a wide area TRS piggybacking on the areas AM/FM, Cellular, and Television towers, using say TETRA.... Or one of the military formats from say Cuba.... Heck your a drug cartel, you can afford anything out there..... It will take minimum a month for local LEA's to even begin to figure out what your doing, another month or so for them to finally go crawling to an higher level agency because even in this age of interop... Agencies don't like to ask for help unless its a top priority case. Then itll take about a month for them to get really working on it... So your safe if your using a good set up for at least 6 months. Thats a LONG time frame to do things, and set up a backup for that system. Not to mention, cartels don't have to worry about bidders, time frames, as cash buys you speedy work, legality of whose tower your on, again cash talks. Eventually yes, you'll get popped... on that net... But what about the other three nets you have established?? WEG