The FBI said Saturday it has seized more than 600 drones flying in restricted airspace around FIFA World Cup 2026 venues since the tournament opened on June 11, with confiscations recorded in all 11 U.S. host cities. Miami leads the tally at 99 seized drones, followed by Atlanta at 77 and Dallas at 63.

The pace is accelerating. The nationwide total doubled in less than two weeks, and the tournament still has two weeks of matches left before the July 19 final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. When I mapped the Federal Aviation Administration’s published venue list against the match calendar in late May, the restriction rings covered more sky than most pilots realized. The seizure numbers suggest too few of them ever looked.

Operators caught inside an active World Cup Temporary Flight Restriction face civil fines up to $75,000, criminal fines up to $100,000, up to a year in prison, and loss of the aircraft. At least three men in Texas already face federal charges.

Seizure Counts Keep Climbing In Every Host City

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have confiscated drones in every one of the 11 U.S. host cities since the opening match on June 11, and NBC News reports the nationwide seizure total doubled in less than two weeks as the group stage filled the calendar.

In its statement on X, the bureau said it is deploying “advanced, specialized drone mitigation teams and technology” to track and intercept unauthorized aircraft near restricted-airspace events. The restrictions activate three hours before each scheduled match and stay in force for three hours after it ends. Most violations so far have resulted in citations and seizures rather than arrests.

The table compiles the FBI’s July 4 statement and figures reported by news outlets over the past week. Counts for the Bay Area and Boston had not been broken out publicly as of this weekend, which is part of why the published city figures do not add up to the full 600. Newark sits at the bottom of the interception table even though the final will be played next door on July 19.

Detections run far higher than seizures. As of June 28, authorities had logged 1,139 drone detections at World Cup and tournament-related sites, with more than 300 aircraft mitigated without force, White House task force coordinator Andrew Giuliani said at the International Police Cooperation Center near Washington. Doug Olson, the FBI special agent coordinating World Cup operations, said seized drones are being processed as evidence in bureau investigations. FBI Director Kash Patel told CNN the interagency operation is working as the bureau envisioned, while FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said operators should expect swift enforcement action for airspace violations.

Texas Cases Show How Fast Detection Becomes A Knock On The Door

Federal prosecutors in Texas have charged at least three men over World Cup drone flights, and the case files describe a detection-to-doorstep pipeline: the FBI spots a drone inside restricted airspace, and task force officers locate the operator on the ground, sometimes within seconds of the initial detection.

On opening day, June 11, John Alexander Meza, 26, of La Porte allegedly flew a DJI Mavic 3 in restricted Houston airspace while trying to film a church. According to the criminal complaint, he held no remote pilot certificate, had not registered the drone, and never checked for flight restrictions. The flight lasted two minutes and peaked just over 61 meters (200 feet). It still earned him federal charges.

Three days later, the FBI detected an unregistered DJI Mini 3 Pro inside the Dallas Stadium ring while a match was in progress, and a task force officer located the person piloting it within seconds. Luis Mauricio Flores Ordonez, 33, was charged with owning an unregistered aircraft that another person operated. He has been in federal custody since his June 14 arrest and is detained pending trial.

Then on June 27, hours before Argentina’s group-stage match against Jordan, an FBI agent monitoring the Dallas Stadium airspace spotted yet another drone. Agents traced it to an Arlington man who confirmed the aircraft was his and admitted he lacked the required FAA credentials, CBS News Texas reported. He was charged with operating without an airman’s certificate. The U.S. Attorney’s office puts the Dallas-area seizure count alone above 70.

“Not only is flying drones in TFR zones illegal, it’s dangerous,” Kansas City U.S. Attorney R. Matthew Price said, promising that the Justice Department will hold violators accountable. His Dallas counterpart, Ryan Raybould, warned that anyone who flies over Dallas Stadium or its fan fest during the tournament should expect prosecution in federal court.

The Restrictions Reach Far Beyond The Stadiums And Run Through July 21

Match-day flight restrictions wall off each stadium with a ring of 5.6 kilometers (3 nautical miles) up to 914 meters (3,000 feet), active from three hours before kickoff until three hours after the final whistle, and separate rings cover the official fan festivals as well as more than 100 team hotel and training camp sites.

The fan festival rings measure 1.9 kilometers (1 nautical mile) up to 305 meters (1,000 feet). The hotel and training camp restrictions are the layer most pilots miss: they sit in cities hundreds of miles from any match, including Boise and Louisville, and they run continuously from June 1 through July 21, as DroneXL detailed in its base camp TFR reporting.

A Part 107 certificate or LAANC authorization means nothing inside an active ring, a point DroneXL made when the FAA published its venue list on May 28. Commercial operators with legitimate work inside a restriction can request access through the DHS authorization path at [email protected], but until an amended NOTAM appears at tfr.faa.gov, the existing restriction remains in force as written.

The enforcement muscle behind the seizures includes roughly 60 state and local officers certified for electronic drone mitigation, layered over federal teams and detection contractors. The Federal Emergency Management Agency allocated $625 million to World Cup security and emergency preparedness overall. Only the July 19 final carries the national special security event designation, which triggers a Secret Service-led operation with hardened perimeters and continuous counter-drone coverage.

DroneXL’s Take

Six hundred seizures in three and a half weeks reads like a counter-drone success story until you consider what it actually measures: the drone community flunking the most heavily advertised airspace test the FAA has ever run. The No Drone Zone campaign has been live since March. The venue list, the ring dimensions, and the penalty figures were published in May. Checking a TFR takes thirty seconds in B4UFLY. And per our reporting on Friday, the early feedback is that plenty of these violators hold Part 107 certificates. The certificate is supposed to mean you know how to read a NOTAM.

Don’t be that guy, because every confiscated Mini becomes an exhibit. The Maryland pilot who forced a stoppage at the January 2025 Ravens-Steelers playoff game became the FBI’s go-to justification for this entire World Cup counter-drone buildup. These 600 drones will play the same role in the next authority debate. The Safer Skies Act powers Congress handed state and local police in December do not expire when the tournament ends, and neither does the FEMA-funded mitigation equipment now sitting in host-city police inventories. Nothing about this apparatus is temporary except the name on the NOTAM.

Watch two things. First, the July 19 final at MetLife Stadium, the only match designated a national special security event, where the enforcement posture will be at its heaviest. Second, the after-action numbers federal agencies publish once the tournament closes, because those figures will anchor the next round of counter-UAS legislation the way the Baltimore playoff incident anchored this one. And if you fly anywhere in this country before July 21, check tfr.faa.gov before you spin a prop. The FBI has now demonstrated more than 600 times that it will find you.

Sources: The Guardian, NBC News, CNN, CBS News Texas, AFP via Digital Journal.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.