Skip to main content

Australian trio adds porn to drone contraband prison delivery menu

Payloads aboard drones used to drop contraband into prisons around the world usually comprise drugs, tobacco, and cellphones, though one curiously creative – and now definitely busted – trio in Australia decided to diversify its illicit recreational cargo by adding a USB drive filled with porn to the mix.

A high court in the Australian city of Brisbane convicted three defendants last Friday for their roles in a 2022 attempt to use a drone to fly $119,000 ($76,400) worth of drugs and digitized dirty movies into a Queensland prison. The attempted launch of the illegal form of aerial delivery services bit the dust – almost literally – when the UAV used crashed while attempting to drop its payload in the penitentiary’s exercise yard.

Prison guards came across the downed drone and discovered it carrying 79 strips of the opioid Buprenorphine – each worth from $1,000 ($642) to $1,500 ($964) on internal contraband market, according to Australian prosecutors – and 0.94 grams of methamphetamine. No estimated value was given for the porn content on the accompanying USB drive.

Cheyenne Anniki Petryszyn, 27, spearheaded the plot to feed the prison’s internal black market with contraband from the outside, in partnership with an inmate distributor, and just-sprung parolee who provided details on the intended drop zone.

After the attempted flight failed, Petryszyn tipped off Australian authorities about her involvement during monitored calls to her convict associate, when she broke from their habitually coded conversations about fishing to note “everything crashed and burned” – presumably during about a topic entirely unrelated to shrimps and barbies.

The slip allowed authorities to use the barcode on the drone to connect it to Petryszyn’s purchase a month before the attempted delivery. Petryszyn, who has reportedly been involved in previous drug trafficking and murder cases, pleaded guilty and was convicted, as were her co-defendants.

Australia is one of the many nations battling the growing problem of drones being used to ferry contraband into penitentiaries for resale – and now becomes the first to report XXX movies being among captured payloads. 

Whether such illegal aerial drops have been organized by current inmates, parolees, outside helpers, or – as in the recent Queensland case – all three, plots to sneak drugs, tobacco, and at times weapons into jails have become a recurrent cause of eruptions of violence among inmates, and thus a major headache for correctional officials worldwide.

Counter-UAV detection and mitigation solutions have been installed in some facilities in response. But in most cases budgetary restrictions have limited preventive measures to visual monitoring and overhead netting to thwart deliveries, or introduced rudimentary drone monitoring and identification tech.

Photo: Vince Mig

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading DroneDJ — experts who break news about DJI and the wider drone ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow DroneDJ on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Comments

Author

Avatar for Bruce Crumley Bruce Crumley

Bruce Crumley is journalist and writer who has worked for Fortune, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, The Guardian, AFP, and was Paris correspondent and bureau chief for Time magazine specializing in political and terrorism reporting. He splits his time between Paris and Biarritz, and is the author of novel Maika‘i Stink Eye.

Manage push notifications

notification icon
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
notification icon
You are subscribed to notifications
notification icon
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
notification icon
You are subscribed to notifications