Drone Carrying Drugs Crashes at a US Prison
Officials in Oklahoma claim to have thwarted the first attempt in the state to smuggle contraband into a prison with an unmanned aerial vehicle.
A drone hauling mobile phones, drugs, hacksaw blades and other items–all of which were hanging in a bundle from a fishing line–crashed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary before prisoners could grab anything, officials said.
The drone is said to have run into razor wire on prison walls, mid-flight. Its operator lost control of the UAV, and the drone crashed into prison grounds. Similar attempts to smuggle contraband by drones have taken place at prisons in other US states.
The package contained two hacksaw blades, a mobile phone, a mobile phone battery, a hands-free device, two packages of cigarettes, two packs of cigars, super glue, a bag of marijuana, a small bag of methamphetamine and a bag of heroin weighing less than one gram.
In August, a drone dropped a package of heroin, marijuana and tobacco in the recreation yard of an Ohio prison, sparking a fight among inmates trying to pick up the contraband. Last year, a drone was used to try to smuggle phones, marijuana and tobacco into a South Carolina maximum-security prison, but it crashed outside the facility’s walls.
The drone in the Oklahoma incident has been turned over to the Department of Correction’s office of the Inspector General for further investigation. No arrests have been made.
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