“We can’t really talk about it,” DroneShield chief executive...

“We can’t really talk about it,” DroneShield chief executive Oleg Vornik said. “I can tell you that the Department of Homeland Security is a major customer for us, and one of their main tasks is protecting the southern border. We just can’t talk about it.”

“At the border the main issue is the Mexican drug cartels using drones to … shuttle drugs across the border and to conduct surveillance on the agents,” said Mr Vornik, a former investment banker.The Australian Financial Review’s“So we believe that we are on the precipice of something really large at the moment,” Mr Vornik said. “We expect to double or triple our revenue, so $20 to $30 million in revenue this calendar year, but that excludes any of those really large possibilities with JCO.”

Washington| A small ASX-listed company has emerged as a key player in countering what US military chiefs say is a rising threat along the country’s southern border and beyond: drones.

American authorities have captured more than 30,000 drones on the border with Mexico in the past few months, and senior officials say America needs to enhance its firepower to combat the threat This article is for subscribers only.