Police in Ireland nab ‘grandfather’ in alleged drone drug trafficking scheme to prisons

Police in Ireland have arrested a DJI drone-toting grandfather they’ve accused of being involved in what has reportedly become the high-volume smuggling of drugs and other banned items into prisons.

Media reports in Ireland said the suspect was apprehended earlier this month in possession of around $1,500 in heroin near the west Dublin Cloverhill Prison, following a police investigation into drone deliveries of drugs into that jail and the nearby Wheatfield Prison. Subsequent searches of his home turned up $250,000 in cash and other evidence of presumed ill-gotten gain.

He was subsequently charged with involvement in the aerial trafficking activity that has led penitentiaries in the area to be swamped by flows of heroin and diamorphine, according to authorities.

During his court hearing last week, the defendant was described as a 44-year-old grandfather – a detail that, atop of the criminal accusation, raises the pressing question “how on earth does someone wind up with grandkids before 45?” Police – for some odd reason – focused on other aspects of the case, including exactly how to charge the defendant they said acknowledged involvement in drone drug running to prisons, yet apparently left the actual piloting to the person he was nabbed with.

In another aspect that will similarly surprise American readers, after hearing evidence during the opening hearing, the magistrate set bail at a mere $2,400, and allowed the defendant to remain free so he could attend the christening of one of his grandchildren. Ireland clearly has a kinder, gentler approach to handling suspects of crimes prior to their conviction – or perhaps the judge is a forty-something granny herself.

That relative leniency is all the more notable given the increasingly brazen activity using drones and other means to smuggle drugs into Ireland’s prisons – and the effort of late by inmates to film their consumption of narcotics while mocking authorities. 

A recent article in the Ireland’s edition of the ever hyperbole-prone Sun newspaper provided details about a rash of cellphone films uploaded to social media sites, featuring prisoners getting high while belittling the inability of officials to stop them. A rather reckless and self-destructive pastime anyway it’s viewed, but arguably less so than having grandchildren before the first wrinkle appears.

Both substantiated and suspected use of drones to transport drugs and other contraband into jails has become a veritable bane to authorities in the US, Europe, and Latin America. It’s especially problematic with a surprising number of facilities having little or not anti-UAV tech to identify or mitigate the flights, and the increasing violence inside jails attributed to narcotics.

That also appears to be the case for prison officials in Ireland, who had to identify and apprehend gramp’s DJI Mavic Air while it was still aloft near Cloverhill Prison to obtain proof of a drone indeed involved in running drugs to people inside.