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The Shawn Ryan Show · 2 min · Oct 23, 2025
V-BAT supported a major Caribbean drug interdiction
Brandon Tseng says V-BAT went operational with the Coast Guard and helped interdict over $500 million in cocaine in two weeks. He also mentions Navy operations in the region.
Brandon Tseng is president and cofounder of Shield AI.
Co-founded Shield AI, maker of autonomous V-BAT drones and AI pilots flying F-16s; former Navy SEAL.
Shawn Ryan, Host · Host, The Shawn Ryan Show
About this segment
Brandon Tseng says V-BAT went operational with the Coast Guard and helped interdict over $500 million in cocaine in two weeks. He also mentions Navy operations in the region.
From “Brandon Tseng – Shield AI’s X-BAT: The First AI Fighter Jet to Outsmart Top Gun | SRS #247”, Oct 23, 2025. Watch the full episode
Thanks. We'll look at and fix what's off.
“And two weeks in, I've interdicted over half a billion dollars worth of cocaine in the Caribbean Sea.”
Brandon Tsengat 6:45 · The Shawn Ryan Show6:45Takeaways
- V-BAT passed operational testing with the Coast Guard.
- Tseng reports over $500 million in cocaine interdicted in two weeks.
- Shield AI also worked with the Navy's Fourth Fleet in the region.
In this episode
Full episode- 1:51:22X-BAT aims to deliver fighter capability without runways7:14
- 1:15:48Autonomous systems learn through simulation and reward5:02
- 1:40:38Shield AI can integrate an AI pilot with three engineers in three months2:54
- 1:13:20Shield AI moved beyond a small quadcopter market2:51
6:15V-BAT supported a major Caribbean drug interdiction2:23
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 6:27
Yes. Yeah. Let's just start right there before we get into the live story. I'd love to hear this because I saw a couple of boats get blown up here and there. I joke with my government relations team that I want a letter of Mark, but they say don't talk about that. But no, we've been working with the U.S. Coast Guard actually in the past couple weeks. We went operational with them. So there's this big, long process. We passed operational testing and evaluation 100% on key performance parameters, 100% on key system attributes. It's our aircraft, the VBAT, which is 180-pound vertical takeoff launch and land aircraft. Easiest way to think about it is like a miniature Reaper Predator drone. And two weeks in, I've interdicted over half a billion dollars worth of cocaine in the Caribbean Sea. Yep, in the Caribbean Sea. Just
- 7:08
absolutely. Obviously, there's a lot of operations going there. We're with the U.S. Coast Guard. I've also done U.S. Navy operations down there with Fourth Fleet. Can't say about, like, all the ops going on in there, but, yeah, what I can say is we've interdicted a lot of drugs, interdicted a lot of vessels. I've seen a lot of ships set on fire in the past couple days or past couple weeks, which feels, right, good as an American.
- 7:35
I actually, like, always, you know, I'm excited about what they're doing in terms of the Caribbean Sea. um and just stopping the flow of drugs into the country and so i'm i'm like the thing that i live for is mission impact and so it's cool to get to have a positive impact on the world in that way that's incredible that man a billion over a billion in less than in two weeks yeah yeah yeah we've been absolutely like it's it's wild i mean yeah holy shit any fentanyl stuff uh not that i don't know well like they they say what they give you is like the the the weight and they give you the street price and so then i hop on google to determine that that is most likely cocaine so um yeah right on man damn that's awesome one more thing so i got a