The deputy director of the FBI warns that drone attacks abroad will soon reach the US

INTERMEDIATE: “It’s only a matter of time” before the kind of drone attacks seen on battlefields abroad reach the United States, FBI Deputy Director Chris Raia warned in an interview with Fox News Digital — as investigators race to prepare for rapidly evolving technology that could eventually allow drone operators thousands of miles away to fly drones targeting Americans.

“I think the biggest threat right now, kind of a five-yard target, if you will, is going to be that threat from a drone,” Raia said.

Government officials are increasingly concerned that advances in commercially available drone technology are empowering individuals and small groups when linked to larger organizations, lowering the barriers to potentially dangerous attacks.

“I’m less concerned about a 9/11-style mass attack than I am about one person, a single attacker,” Raia said.

Raia’s warning comes as authorities grapple with the rapid expansion of inexpensive drone technology, lessons learned from conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and an alleged domestic plot to target the White House UFC event that prosecutors say involved plans to use drones packed with explosives. The FBI is also in the midst of securing the FIFA World Cup, one of the largest domestic security operations in recent US history.

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In Ukraine, low-cost drones have revolutionized warfare, performing surveillance, targeting and attack where they were reserved for sophisticated military systems. Similar tactics have also appeared in conflicts across the Middle East, where armed groups have used drones to target artillery and military personnel.

Researchers are focusing on the next generation of drones, which can operate over 5G and LTE cellular networks rather than relying solely on short-range radio frequency links that typically require operators to sit nearby.

“We’ve seen that overseas, and it’s only a matter of time before somebody brings that kind of attack, that attack here in the United States,” Raia said.

Most commercially available drones today rely on direct radio frequency links, Wi-Fi-style communications or other short-range communications that often require operators to remain close to the aircraft. But Raia said the FBI is increasingly preparing for programs that can be controlled from a greater distance.

“That means someone in China can control a drone over New Orleans,” he said.

Such a change, he warned, could make it harder for investigators to spot drivers and disrupt attacks before they happen.

He encouraged the public to keep calling for tips about suspicious drone activity.

“Especially all these drone hobbyists out there who fly drones for non-malevolent purposes,
Raia said. “They know better what a strange person looks like than we do.”

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The FBI’s focus on drones has intensified during the FIFA World Cup, which authorities have described as one of the largest security operations in recent US history. Agents have already seized more than 300 drones and arrested eight for unauthorized drone activity during the tournament, according to Raia.

Federal prosecutors say concerns about drone misuse are not just a theory. Court records accuse members of an alleged UFC conspiracy that discussed the use of explosives-laden explosives to evict large numbers of people, and the newly indicted defendant allegedly exchanged messages about the acquisition of drones, payloads and special operations equipment.

Recently unsealed court records suggest that investigators were looking into whether members of the UFC allegedly colluded in connection with the FIFA World Cup match scheduled for July 3 in Kansas City, Missouri. In another affidavit, an FBI agent wrote that he believed the text messages exchanged between the alleged conspirators referred to the event and preparations to travel to Missouri.

The war in Ukraine has shown how inexpensive drones can be adapted for surveillance, targeting and attack when combined with highly sophisticated military systems. (Efrat Lachter/Fox News Digital)

Government officials worry about what bad actors can do with powerful drone technology, and how they plan, recruit and plan attacks without public scrutiny.

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The UFC’s alleged collusion highlighted another challenge for investigators: encrypted social networks that are too hidden from law enforcement scrutiny.

“That’s a gap for us in encrypted social media,” Raia said.

Raia said the office is trying to overcome that challenge by using confidential sources of people, undercover agents and tips from the public. But he admitted that investigators do not have access to all encrypted conversations where a crime may have occurred.

“I think I’d be a fool to think we’re in all those rooms,” she said.

In the UFC’s alleged conspiracy, investigators got a rare break.

According to Raia, the case started with a worried parent.

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“We had a concerned parent who launched this whole UFC 250 case,” Raia said.

Government officials worry about what bad actors can do with powerful drone technology, and how they plan, recruit and plan attacks without public scrutiny. (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)

A tip from Tycen Proper’s mother reportedly led investigators to look into her son’s online activity. After obtaining a warrant for Proper’s phone, investigators found what prosecutors described as a network of encrypted conversations about drone operations, hacker positions, meeting places and planning attacks related to the White House event.

Court records show that Proper’s phone allegedly contained the main Signal conversation with as many as 19 participants, as well as smaller functional conversations organized by role and location.

For investigators, the case underscored how emerging technology and encrypted communications can allow small groups of people to coordinate sophisticated attack plans while remaining largely hidden from the public — a dangerous area the FBI believes will continue to evolve.

Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino recently issued a similar warning, arguing that the rapid evolution of commercially available drone technology is outpacing conventional security considerations.

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“This technology is improving on an almost weekly, if not monthly cycle now,” he told Fox News on June 16. “And don’t think that people who want to do malicious acts, terrorists and others, have never caught on to this. It’s cheap. It’s very hard to win.”