Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda has unveiled new technical details about the upcoming surveillance drones set to join the Royal Police Force’s law enforcement toolkit, confirming the unmanned aircraft will come equipped with high-performance night-vision technology and an impressive operational radius of roughly 25 kilometers. While the administration first publicly shared its plan to purchase the drones earlier, the prime minister offered fresh insight into the system’s capabilities during a recent appearance Saturday on the local Browne and Browne Show.
One of the most notable features of the new drone fleet is its remote operability, Browne explained. Police personnel will not need to be on location near the surveillance target to pilot the craft; operators can control the drones directly from either the central Police Headquarters or the St. John’s Police Station, even when monitoring activity in distant communities across the country. He offered a concrete example of the system’s functionality: officers based in St. John’s can fly the drone to a specific property in Gray’s Farm, several kilometers outside the city center, and track activity on the ground in real time without leaving their base.
The 25-kilometer range eliminates the need to deploy frontline officers directly to potentially high-risk areas when conducting surveillance, creating an added layer of safety for law enforcement personnel. Complementing the long operating range, the integrated night-vision capability removes the limitation of daytime-only surveillance, allowing officers to detect and track suspicious after-hours activity that often goes unseen by ground patrols.
In his remarks, Browne framed the acquisition as a major expansion of the country’s law enforcement capacity, noting “we’re scaling up big time” to address ongoing public safety challenges. Notably, the prime minister declined to share several key details about the procurement, including the total number of drones being purchased, the expected delivery timeline, and the total cost of the equipment to public coffers.
The drone purchase forms a core component of a broader government push to bolster Antigua and Barbuda’s law enforcement infrastructure, a response to growing public and official concern over rising rates of gun violence and other violent criminal offenses across the twin-island nation.