Knockoff Iranian Drone Sold on Alibaba Was Meant for War, Documents Show

UPDATE 1/22/24: After the publication of this story, Motherboard received an email from Sunlipo signed by a Jacob Liu, who said he was the owner. In the email, Liu said that Motherboard’s coverage had caused Sunlipo’s Alibaba account to be frozen, that he had lost all of his money and employees, and that he feared prison time. 

Liu claimed that Sunlipo did not really sell the HXZ-50 drone, and that it was a ruse to lure in customers to buy batteries. “My sales also got [the images] from [the] internet and edited it by himself. We don’t have real drone, all the information is gathered in internet. All what we said in [WhatsApp] is want to lure clients attention and sell drone batteries to clients,” he said. The original picture uploaded to advertise the XHZ-50 on Sunlipo’s now-defunct Alibaba website looks remarkably like an AFP graphic from 2022 that explained the Shahed-136. The Sunlipo sales representative who previously reached out to Motherboard via WhatsApp also shared four photographs of the XHZ-20, another drone model that marketing materials also sold as a “suicide UAV,” parked in a field, as well as a video showing the drone in flight. Before publication, Motherboard attempted to find public versions of these images existing on the internet and found no examples, indicating that they are likely unique.

The original story continues below.

Earlier this week, a Chinese manufacturer listed a knockoff of an Iranian suicide drone on Alibaba, then removed it after being contacted by Motherboard. The XHZ-50 Fixed Wing UAV was marketed for use with “survey mapping inspection,” and other models came with similar disclaimers on the e-commerce website. 

According to documents obtained by Motherboard, however, the drone was really meant for war.

A sales document about the XHZ-50, which has a a 50KG payload and looks nearly identical to Iran’s Shahed-136 drone which has been used by Russia in Ukraine, described the UAV as a “suicide” weapon for use on a battlefield. 

“It is a tactical UAV that can roll, move on a vehicle or be launched with a solid rocket boost from a ship. It can be launched by multiple aircraft at the same time. It is a long-range suicide UAV used on the battlefield to attack fixed targets,” the document said. “The aircraft has low-altitude and high-speed penetration capabilities and is difficult to be detected by radar. It flies very low and dives down to 100 meters before hitting the target and flies close to the ground at high speed for penetration.” A sales document for the XHZ-20, a smaller drone model with a 20KG payload, contains the same wording.

A Sunlipo employee confirmed it had pulled the drones from Alibaba because they are weapons, and claimed the listing had attracted too much interest.

“Too many people want to buy it, it’s not a good thing for us,” Johnny Lu, Shenzhen-based OEM Sunlipo’s sales director told Motherboard over WhatsApp. “We are afraid that Alibaba platform will be frozen if Alibaba knows that it’s a weapon.” 

Lu also sent Motherboard photos showing one of the XHZ-20 drones sold by the company in a nondescript field. He did not send Motherboard photos of the XHZ-50, the model that looks like Iran’s Shahed-136. 

According to Lu, the drones are destined for Eastern Europe. “This item is customized for one big client in UKR [Ukraine],” he said. Motherboard sent a request for comment to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, which was not returned in time for publication. 

When asked if the XHZ-50 was based on Iran’s Shahed-136, Lu said it’s similar. 

Beijing has pledged not to sell weapons to anyone fighting the war. China is the home of DJI, one of the biggest drone makers on the planet. And though it tried to curb exports to the region, the quadcopters kept finding a way into Ukraine. “Our government don’t allow us to sell to countries involved in war,” Lu said.

The Shahed line of UAVs are not sophisticated. They’re a fiberglass airframe powered by a simple gasoline engine similar to what’s on a lawnmower or dirtbike. It wouldn’t be hard for anyone to copy the design and sell them to whoever they wish. The hardest parts of the project are finding an explosive payload as well as the communications and navigation systems.

According to the sales documents obtained by motherboard, the XHZ-50 and 20 can use GPS, GLONASS, or Beidou for navigation. These different methods of navigation are operated by the governments of the U.S., Russia, and China, respectively. It’s equipped with a camera of some kind, but the details are light. In addition to the two models of drone, Sunlipo has also manufactured a drone catapult to launch them which is priced at $41,000.

Both Ukraine and Russia are hungry for drones. From quadcopters to Shaheds, the UAV has come to define the war. Kyiv has said it wants to produce 1 million FPV drones—small drones remote-controlled by a pilot with a video feed—in 2024 and Moscow has ordered a ramp up in domestic production. The machines are cheap, easy to use, and can deliver death from a safe distance. Expensive equipment like tanks have struggled to defend themselves from aerial assaults against the cheap devices.

Russia has used the Shahed to great effect against Ukraine and has manufactured its own knockoffs. The market for drones is wide open and Kyiv and Moscow are both more than happy to pay for whatever they can get.