Gangs are using drones to spread swine fever in China

In China, there is an ongoing epidemic of African swine fever. The disease is not a threat to people, but primarily infects pigs[1]. The native porcine species of Africa appear to be immune and even are the vector for the virus, but domestic pigs are anything but immune. The virus causes extremely high mortality in pigs. And, yes, the virus causes a hemorrhagic fever when a pig is infected, not all that dissimilar to ebola in people. However, as stated, it is not CURRENTLY a threat to people.

Pigs are a fantastic way to have zoonosis strike[2], so the Chinese have been aggressive in dealing with the disease. When found in a farm, the Chinese have been wiping out all the pigs present. Slaughtering them all and even the surrounding farms. The potential for a zoonotic - a leap from animals to people for a disease - and the outright threat to the Chinese food supply (pork being one of the preferred meats in their cuisines), one could see why they are being so aggressive.

Attacking food sources for nations is not new. Scorched earth campaigns have been the norm for defenders for a long, long time and raiders would often attack food supplies, destroying or devastating them, to win wars. It was often worried during the Cold War that the Soviet Union would release pathogens to attack food supplies in the US, especially on the grains like wheat. None of that ever happened as the Cold War ended prior to any World War III outbreak.

There was always a possibility that nonstate actors/entities might use weapons of this sort outside of a WW3 scenario. After 9/11, this was and is a major concern. In the US, plots were either foiled or sputtered out (re the anthrax attacks). However, in China, something else has happened.

Remember the african swine fever epidemic? Well, it's getting a helping hand. No, not to wipe it out, but to use it against the farmers. Gangs are threatening farmers: sell the pigs to the gang at much lower price than market or else. If the farmer refuses, the gang will send drones carrying contaminated pork offal into pig farms[3]. That pork offal is pork meat contaminated by african swine fever. The pigs, being omnivores like people, eat the offal and then the fever spreads through the farm like wild fire and the Chinese government then destroys all the pigs.

The farmers are desperate to stop the gangs: either they lose everything by being defiant to the gangs when the government comes through and destroys the sounders[4] on the farm or the gangs force them to sell at prices far, far below what the market would, which, in turn, will bankrupt the farmers.

The farmers have even started trying to jam[5] the frequencies used by the drones. The hope is to prevent the gangs from being able to deliver the infected pork products to the pens. This won't stop someone from driving by and throwing the offal into the pens, but would make it far more likely the criminals will be caught. However, the jamming will probably be stopped by the government at some point. The Chinese equivalent of the FCC is even less friendly than the American one.

It isn't clear how the Chinese can stop the gangs from doing this short of the government going on a major offensive against them. However, drones are pretty easy to hack and building DIY ones isn't hard, so even if the Chinese government geofences all the farms, the problem will likely continue.

That said, there are two real problems here. The first is, of course, the worry for the Chinese food supply. The second is the potential for the disease to be encouraged to leap from pigs to people. Influenza has been greatly helped by the traditional tiered approach in China agriculture and intentionally spreading the disease could make the leap that much more likely. Even more so, should some moron decide to tinker with the swine fever in order to make the operation even more...efficient.

Time will tell, but the use of drones in a biological campaign is a frightening thing. And this will probably not be the last time this happens either.


1. en.wikipedia.org...
2. en.wikipedia.org...
3. www.scmp.com...
4. www.quora.com...
5. www.agriculture.com...

This is horrible. Who would do such a thing and why?

Forcing China to buy more pork from the EU or other foreign suppliers??

The main source of imported pork to China is the European Union, led by Germany and Spain.In total, China brings in about two-thirds of its pork imports from the E.U.

www.ncpork.org...

BTW, in the link above, China produces over 90% of it's pork.



But here's something more serious to consider. Drones spreading a virus.....uh, I think some of our worst fears have just be realized with fact. Is this a test run for other viruses that can harm humans? Truly scary.

Poor farmers, even uninfected farms that are in close proximity get their pigs slaughtered.



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i hate when criminals go after regular people.
i wish criminals would only target banks, corporations, billionaires.

im assuming a farmer in china makes less than 30k a year.

i wish the gangs would take all their ingenuity and try to target like the mansions of s0ros over there.

a reply to: anzha

With the high corruption happening over there with government officials, I would not be surprised if the officials are the gang leaders.

I wonder if the CIA is helping facilitate this.

Don't forget that the CHicoms are rounding up muslims and other dissidents into concentration camps.

This type of asymmetrical warfare is really perfect given the near totalitarian nature of the government there.

China accounts for half of the world wide pork consumption so its a splashy and noteworthy target.

Now imagine if they say get a quantity of Polonium-210 and dump it into the water supply etc.

China's Achilles heel is food

originally posted by: Masisoar
I wonder if the CIA is helping facilitate this.

I doubt it the Chicom government has plenty of internal enemies and at this level its grounds for war if the CIA was involved

I would be very happy if all gang members around the world would just kill themselves. It would be a safer world without those animals.

I'm not jumping on the CIA wagon. If the CIA were involved then Chinese press wouldn't be allowed to report it.

I think there are more conspicuous forces at play here.

Why use drones when you can just do a drive by and infect at will? Being a drone professional, spraying using drones is costly, not very effective, expensive and above all else very risky. A blow dart full of swine flu on one pig would do a great the job of infecting the whole farm, just saying...lol

Chinese animal welfare and husbandry are very, very poor. Cruel and unregulated practice leads to the spread of disease.

originally posted by: Xtrozero
Why use drones when you can just do a drive by and infect at will? Being a drone professional, spraying using drones is costly, not very effective, expensive and above all else very risky. A blow dart full of swine flu on one pig would do a great the job of infecting the whole farm, just saying...lol

I agree with that but, less chance of getting caught and I doubt the Chinese security forces will read you miranda rights once they catch you.

I find it interesting they say gangs ... gangs are profit driven

Terrorists on the other hand are not and a particular type of them really dont like pork and probably not to happy with being tossed in re-education camps

a reply to: anzha
Personally? I think our fearless leader (that God that blew itself up in order to experience Itself in smaller pieces) is becoming bored and in so being creating smaller and smaller intersections for unimportant information caught back up and needlessly cataloged. "BRAZIL" was the movie to pay attention to. We do not want to have to answer to "Central Services".

a reply to: FredT

If the farmers are able to jam the frequencies these drones use the operator is still pretty close. Maybe not drive-by close but definitely in the neighborhood. It feels like they would be hard to miss considering the size and scale of most farms.

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

They haven't seemed to of had a problem publicizing their suspicions about Western Intelligence being involved in Hong Kong.

originally posted by: markovian
I find it interesting they say gangs ... gangs are profit driven

Terrorists on the other hand are not and a particular type of them really dont like pork and probably not to happy with being tossed in re-education camps

The Chicom government seems unwilling to admit there is an active rebellion other than Taiwan within their borders (and lets face it the Taiwan ship has sailed) To admit that their own people have turned to terrorism would be a huge loss of face

originally posted by: 0zzymand0s
a reply to: FredT

If the farmers are able to jam the frequencies these drones use the operator is still pretty close. Maybe not drive-by close but definitely in the neighborhood. It feels like they would be hard to miss considering the size and scale of most farms.

True, but then again thats their word and the epidemic still seems pretty hot so its hard to say.

Also even if it were a few 100 yards that might be enough to escape casual detection. Also, if you are using the drones for terrorist purposes they seem unlikely to be constrained by government limits on bandwidth and broadcasting power etc

I feel bad for the ordinary farmer or citizen. Gangs are the scourge of the earth.
However, I’m more then happy if this affects the Chinese military, intelligence/cyber criminals, copyright violators and High level Chicom government. As far as I’m concerned we are actually at a low grade war with their evil 😡
a reply to: anzha

"The native porcine species of Africa appear to be immune"
HUH??????
so the porcines are doing it?