NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- The FBI plans to deploy roughly 60 specially trained state and local police officers across venues for the FIFA World Cup to detect and electronically disable hostile drones as security officials warn that threats once associated with foreign battlefields are increasingly possible inside the US.
Training is already underway with less than four weeks until the tournament starts with millions of visitors expected to crisscross 11 US cities. The competition, which starts June 11 and ends in New Jersey on July 19, is also being played in Mexico and Canada.
Officers from agencies including state police in New York and New Jersey, the New York City and Los Angeles police departments and the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office will operate counter-drone equipment under FBI supervision, according to a person familiar with the program who isn’t authorized to speak publicly.
The buildup reflects growing concern among federal authorities that commercially available drones can be used to disrupt or attack large public gatherings, particularly after recent incidents tied to sports venues, extremist plots and overseas conflicts.
Security officials say the spread of inexpensive first-person-view drones used in Ukraine and the Middle East has fundamentally changed how the US approaches major-event security ahead of a tournament expected to draw millions of spectators across North America.
The FBI will directly oversee drone mitigation in Los Angeles, Miami and New York, while Department of Homeland Security components will cover the other eight US host cities, the person said.
One recent training exercise in Alabama showed how operators can take down drones without interrupting games or creating panic. As a drone rose from a parking lot outside Huntsville’s Joe Davis Stadium and headed toward the soccer field, agents positioned about a mile away detected the unmanned aircraft electronically, tracked its path and seized control without firing a shot.
“That was probably kind of boring,” Michael Torphy, the FBI agent leading the bureau’s counter-drone training program, told reporters observing the exercise. “We want this to be boring.”
The demonstration offered a preview of the operation federal authorities plan to deploy across World Cup stadiums, fan festivals and public viewing areas.
“Every major public gathering, from a World Cup match to an America 250 celebration, is now a drone environment,” Devin Kowalski, an FBI assistant director who oversees the Critical Incident Response Group, said during the exercise. “The public expects and deserves those skies to be watched.”
The defenses are electronic, not physical. Operators use cameras, radar and radio-frequency sensors to detect drones entering restricted airspace, then disrupt or override the aircraft’s controls electronically rather than using nets, gunfire or missiles. Those more kinetic options exist elsewhere in the federal government’s arsenal, but local officers participating in the World Cup program aren’t authorized to use them, the person familiar said.
After the stadium demonstration, agents showed another scenario in a nearby park. A drone hovered overhead as a loudspeaker announced: “This is the FBI. You have violated a no-fly zone. Land your drone immediately and await contact by law enforcement.”
The drone drifted away moments later, electronically pushed out of restricted airspace.
The FBI says the threat is no longer theoretical.
During the Ravens-Steelers Wild Card playoff game at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium last year, a Maryland man flew an unregistered DJI Mavic 3 Pro drone into restricted airspace, forcing NFL officials to suspend play, according to federal court filings. He later pleaded guilty to violating national defense airspace restrictions.
Officials say they are increasingly focused on more dangerous scenarios.
In another recent case cited by officials, the FBI arrested a Tennessee man accused of preparing to launch an explosives-laden drone at an electrical substation in a plot motivated by white supremacist ideology. Thomas Matthew Crooks, the would-be assassin who targeted Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in 2024, flew a drone over the rally site before the attack, according to investigators.
In June 2025, Ukrainian operatives smuggled first-person-view drones deep into Russia and used them to strike strategic bombers parked thousands of miles from the front lines. American officials concluded similar tactics could theoretically be replicated inside the US, according to the person familiar with the FBI program.
The FBI began planning the expanded training program in 2022 and formally launched it in October after Trump signed an executive order to expand the domestic drone industry and strengthen protections for US airspace. Congress widened the effort further in December through the Safer Skies Act, which for the first time granted state, local, tribal and territorial police agencies authority to participate directly in counter-drone operations.
Funding is flowing through a $500 million counter-drone appropriation included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, according to the person familiar with the program. FEMA has already distributed half of that money to World Cup host jurisdictions to purchase detection and mitigation equipment, with another tranche expected later this year.
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