Pig Farmers Were Trying To Protect Their Herds From Swine Flu

A counter-drone measure employed by one of the largest pork producers in China had an unintended consequence. It disrupted the GPS signals being used by manned aircraft flying overhead.

The U.K. newspaper The Telegraph reports that criminals have been using drones to drop contaminated pork products on farms in an effort to fake outbreaks of swine fever. The disease is not any risk to people, but is fatal to pigs. The goal is to force farmers to sell their supposedly-infected animals cheaply to the criminals, who then resell the meat as healthy stock at a significantly higher price.

According to the Chinese state-backed website The Paper, a pig farming unit of Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group employed a counter-drone technology to jam the GPS signals of the drones being to attack their farms. But at the same time, airliners flying over the operation also lost their GPS signals.

The company said in a statement that it acknowledged using the counter-drone technology, and was prepared to accept the consequences. "To prevent external people from using drones to drop pork with African swine fever virus, [one of our units] violated regulations by using a drone control equipment set," the company said. "We broke related radio regulations, although that was unintentional."

The company said it had shut down the jamming equipment and turned it over to the authorities. The government has called for an aggressive campaign against those who supply such equipment.

(Image from file)

FMI: Source report