GA Traffic Tracking on Flight Aware

Greetings all, a friend is Ferrying a PA28 from CYBW in Canada to Santiago Chile, we fellow Pilot friends and his Family stopped seeing him south of VeraCruz Mexico.
I have looked at various airports south into Latin America and I see Comercial airline traffic but no GA traffic, is this part of the Narco prevention
scheme to reduce theft and hijacking of GA aircraft?
Thank you

Have a look at the coverage map for the areas where the expected flight path is: FlightAware ADS-B Coverage Map - FlightAware

The density of receivers in South America is much lower than in the US. This is significant because GA traffic would usually be tracked by MLAT, which requires the aircraft to be visible to several receivers in order to calculate a position. There are only sufficient receivers in a few locations, so unless he is actually transmitting ADS-B then it’s not surprising that he is not showing up.

Do you know if has ADS-B equipment?

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We do have some COCESNA radar coverage over Central America, but other than that, yeah, it’s mostly ADS-B only, especially at the lower altitudes that a PA28 will use. (MLAT over coastal Brazil/Argentina is OK, but that’s not going to help much for a flight to Chile)

Thank you for your comments, since posting I concluded or I’m speculating that GA traffic is not visible because of the threat of Narcos hijacking aircraft
The aircraft has a Garmin transponder with ADS-B….
That is the only way he could file IFR in the US .
The registration is C-FUPY, he is visible all the way into Vera Cruz Mexico

As of this early morning is was planing to wheels up from Liberia heading South, around 600nm leg, it’s range is rather limited, there a lot of thunderstorms predicted for that area, he wishes he was flying my Lancair ES, 6 hours range at 172 KTAS.
Aprecia-te all your feedback

That aircraft’s ADS-B out is UAT (978MHz). There is little to no receiver coverage for UAT outside the US, as UAT is only used within the US. Outside the US generally only 1090MHz coverage is available.

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