- Italian authorities have seized two military drones en route from China to Libya.
- Italian authorities said the items were in containers and disguised to look like wind turbine parts.
- The Times reported that these are Chinese-made Wing Long unmanned aerial vehicles that are often compared to the Reaper.
Italian customs and maritime authorities said on Tuesday they had seized parts for two combat drones disguised as wind turbines in a container en route from China to Libya.
Officers at the port of Gioia Tauro seized six containers labelled as parts for wind turbines but filled with the bodies and wings of military drones, the financial police, which patrols Italian waters and is tasked with cracking down on smuggling, said in a statement.
Investigators said the drone parts were hidden inside material made to resemble wind turbine fan blades “with the intent of concealing the testing that was taking place.”
Financial police said the drone had a total weight of more than three tons, was more than 32 feet long and had a wingspan of more than 65 feet.
The Times of London reported on Sunday that Italian authorities acted on information from the United States.
According to the article, three containers were seized from the MSC Arena on June 18, and authorities expect three more to arrive on the MSC Apolline over the weekend.
The drone was a Wing Lun UAV bound for Benghazi to be delivered to Libya's General Khalifa Haftar, the Times reported. The package included two control stations for the drone, the Times reported.
The Financial Security Force did not name the drone in its statement, but the specifications of the drone it listed match those of the WingLong-2 listed in Chinese state media reports.
As a long-flight remotely piloted weapons platform, the Wing Dragon 2 is often compared to the US-made MQ-9 Reaper, but its top speed and altitude are inferior to the latter.
When it was introduced in 2017, Chinese state media hailed it as a sign that China had become the first country to rival the United States with a “new generation of large-scale integrated reconnaissance and attack drones.”
Neither the Times nor the Financial Guard said whether the Chinese government was involved.
China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
Italian authorities also declined to say whether the shipment contained ammunition for drones. Officials added that the seized shipment was likely a violation of a long-standing U.N. arms embargo with Libya.
Haftar's faction, the Libyan National Army, is based in eastern Libya and tried to overthrow the country's internationally recognized government in 2020.
A former officer in Muammar Gaddafi's regime, he has close ties with Russia, which has pledged to support his forces as he expands his control over much of Libya.
Prior to this latest seizure, the Wing Lun 2 had been used previously in Libya, with the UN concluding that Haftar's forces had likely used the drone in attacks on the outskirts of Tripoli in 2019.
A UN report and a BBC investigation found that the Wing Loon-2 drones were likely supplied by the United Arab Emirates, which has long been accused of backing Haftar.
In April, two Libyan men were indicted in Canada on charges of conspiring to sell Chinese-made drones to Libya in exchange for oil between 2018 and 2021.