When Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez appeared on a nationwide TV broadcast in June 2012, proudly announcing that his country was now manufacturing “unmanned aircraft,” the news took both supporters and critics by surprise. In a defiant tone, the president showcased three prototypes, saying the country had the right to build them while claiming that they were not armed.
Today, as the Caracas regime declares it will deploy drones to defend itself amid growing tensions triggered by the dispatch of more than half a dozen powerful U.S. warships to the waters off its Caribbean coast, few people know the details of how Venezuela developed one of Latin America’s most advanced unmanned aircraft programs.
Fewer still know an element associated with the program that has sparked interest — and alarm — from some officials in Washington: The drones, though built on Venezuelan soil, are controlled to some extent by Iran.
The long-standing links between Caracas and Tehran have been a source of contention between Venezuela and the United States amid recurrent accusations that the Venezuelan regime has allowed Hezbollah, an Iran-controlled organization considered a terrorist group by the U.S. and other nations, to use the Latin American country as an entry point into the region.
The U.S. is watching closely. Think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the U.S. Southern Command’s Diálogo Initiative have published analyses on the “new asymmetric threat” posed by drones in the hands of an Iranian-allied regime. The main concern isn’t just that Venezuela might use them to surveil or intimidate internal opponents, but that it could transfer technology to other governments or to criminal and paramilitary organizations in the region.
There is also concern that the Teheran-Caracas relationship might turn the South American country into an important center for the production of Iran’s kamikaze drones, said Farzin Nadimi, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East policy, who warned that by 2022 drones coming from the military installations in Venezuelans were armed with four small bombs hung under their wings.
“U.S. Southern Command watched all of these developments closely and with some concern,” he wrote, referring to the Doral-based Defense Department unit responsible for operations in Central and South America.
Chávez’s secret project hadn’t emerged from nowhere. Behind the scenes were more than six years of cooperation with Tehran. What began with a $28 million contract and shipments of Iranian Mohajer-2 drone assembly kits eventually evolved into a robust unmanned aerial vehicle program that now produces not only reconnaissance units but also armed systems, stealth models, and kamikaze drones loaded with explosives—all inspired by Iranian designs.
The technological leap has alarmed neighbors like Colombia and is being closely monitored by Washington because of its strategic implications for the hemisphere.
The Miami Herald spoke with half a dozen people familiar with the close relationship Venezuela forged with Iran over the past two decades. The Herald also reviewed dozens of official Venezuelan government documents—some signed by Chávez himself—that reveal how billions of dollars were poured into the secretive partnership. Many of the deals were hidden behind development projects that, on paper, seemed harmless—like bicycle or tractor factories—but in reality served as fronts for far more sensitive purposes.
At the heart of the military alliance between Caracas and Tehran was Chávez’s desire to arm himself with weapons capable of challenging U.S. military power.
The drone revolutions
In the early 2000s, Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Armed Forces had no experience with drone technology. Its operations depended entirely on conventional aircraft and traditional surveillance systems.
The situation changed in 2006, when Caracas signed a technical-military agreement with Tehran that included drone technology transfer, training and parts supply. Iranian manufacturer Qods Aviation Industries, creator of the Mohajer-2, provided the initial kits. Venezuelan engineers traveled to Iran for training, while Iranian teams set up shop at the El Libertador Air Base in Maracay, in the central state of Aragua, under the supervision of the an entity known as the Venezuelan Military Industries Company.
Secret assembly began in 2009. The Arpía-001 drone, a direct derivative of the Mohajer-2, an Iranian unmnaned aerial vehicle with 12-foot wingspan, became the first drone produced in Venezuela. In 2012, Chávez showcased it publicly for the first time.
The Arpía 1 weighs around about 190 pounds, can fly for and has a range of about 60 miles. It is equipped with high-resolution video and photo cameras, primarily for surveillance and reconnaissance tasks. It can also support civilian missions, such as monitoring oil and power infrastructure, managing natural disasters or combating drug trafficking. In fact, in 2012 it was reported that a Venezuelan drone detected a small aircraft suspected of transporting drugs.
Other models soon followed, developed with Iran’s help, sources told the Herald.
“Cooperation with Iran was essential. Not only could Venezuela never have developed drones on its own, but even today it’s the Iranians who control those facilities. Venezuelan personnel can’t enter without their authorization,” one source who asked not to be identified told the Herald.
The drone plant in Maracay has operated intermittently depending on economic and political crises. By 2013, under Nicolás Maduro’s leadership, only about 15 Arpía units had been built, used for border patrol and monitoring oil infrastructure.
Venezuelas’ economic collapse stalled the project between 2014-18. By 2019, just one Arpía drone remained operational, according to leaked Venezuelan internal documents. Ironically, that same year Maduro survived an assassination attempt using explosive-laden commercial drones —an episode that convinced him to revive the national drone industry.
In 2020, the Venezuelan government created Empresa Aeronáutica Nacional S.A., a subsidiary of Conviasa, the country’s flag carrier airline, tasked with producing drones and aircraft. The Maracay workshops resumed operations with Iranian assistance, just as international arms export restrictions on Tehran were being lifted.
Two years later, Venezuela stunned observers by unveiling two advanced drone models during the July 5, 2022, military parade: the ANSU-100 and the ANSU-200.
The Ansu 100 is an updated, armed version of the Arpía, capable of launching Iranian-designed Qaem — air-to-ground guided bombs. The Ansu-200 is a flying-wing prototype inspired by Iranian stealth designs, presented as “next-generation technology.”
With the ANSU-100, Venezuela became the first Latin American country to operate armed drones, sources told the Herald.
Now, as U.S. Navy ships begin to gather in the Caribbean in what is being called an anti-narcotics operation but is widely interpreted as an open threat to Maduro’s regime, Caracas has sought to showcase its own military muscle. It recently mobilized millions of militia members and announced it will deploy its own warships and drones.
U.S warships in the Caribbean
In a video shared Wednesday on social media, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said the operation involves “a significant deployment of drones with different missions, citizen support points, exploration and surveillance, river patrols with the Marine Infantry, and naval patrols in Lake Maracaibo and the Gulf of Venezuela.”
Part of the plan is the dispatch of about 15,000 troops to border regions with Colombia to bolster anti-drug operations, according to the government. Padrino López emphasized that the measure responds to the need to “protect sovereignty and fight drug trafficking.”
The decision coincides with the U.S. naval deployment in the southern Caribbean. The Trump administration recently ordered three guided-missile destroyers, three amphibious operations vessels, a guided-missile cruiser, a nuclear attack submarine and about 4,000 Marines to the region as part of what it calls international anti-drug operations.
Although U.S. officials have refrained from saying the naval force could be used against Venezuela, the maneuver coincides with the increase of a U.S. reward for Maduro’s capture to $50 million, as Washington accuses him of leading the so-called “Cartel of the Suns,” a drug-trafficking network run by senior government officials.
Caracas has called the U.S. deployment an “escalation of hostile actions.” Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil appealed to the United Nations on Wednesday for the “immediate cessation” of the military operation and asked Secretary-General António Guterres to intervene to “restore sanity.”
Military cooperation between Venezuela and Iran has remained low-profile, but several episodes have raised international alarms. In 2022, a cargo plane owned by Emtrasur, a Conviasa subsidiary, was detained in Argentina with a mixed Venezuelan-Iranian crew. Although Caracas insisted it was transporting auto parts, news reports out of Israel suggested it could have been tied to drone technology transfers.
Allegations that the plane served as a front for Iranian intelligence operations in the region have drawn significant attention to the case in several South American countries, the United States and Israel. Both Iran and Venezuela have strongly denied the claims.
One Western intelligence report claims that Conviasa/EANSA has served as an air bridge to bring control stations, high-resolution cameras and possibly missiles from Iran. Israel has also voiced concern. In 2022, Benny Gantz, the Israeli defense minister at the time, accused Iran of transferring armed drones to Venezuela. Tehran denied it, but photos taken in Venezuela of the missile-capable ANSU-100 continued to fuel suspicions.
Between 2009-16 Venezuelan drones were used mainly for surveillance and patrol. Since 2022, with the development of the ANSU-100, the focus has shifted: the drones not only observe, they can attack. Analysts describe this as an “Iranization” of Venezuela’s military doctrine, seeking to compensate for conventional shortcomings through armed drones and what are called “loitering” munitions, or suicide drones. These are expendable unmanned aerial weapons with a built-in warhead that can hover over a target area before crashing and exploding on a target.
The Zamora V-1, unveiled by Venezuela in 2024, is an example. Inspired by Iran’s Shahed-136, used by Russia in the Ukraine war, it’s a short-range suicide drone with limited explosive capability. Though rudimentary, it marks another step in the transfer of military technology from Tehran.
The presence of armed drones in Venezuela worries neighboring countries. In 2021, Colombia formally protested the violation of its airspace by a Russian Orlan-10 drone operated by the Venezuelan military. With ANSU-100 systems operational, the risk of these type of incidents between the two countries has increased.
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