Prison

Authorities in the UK are seeking to battle what they decry as increasing drone deliveries of contraband to prisons in a manner that hasn’t been terribly effective in other countries before: passing new legislation to broaden bans on what’s already illegal activity, rather than investing in the specialized detection and mitigation tech required to detect and neutralize invasive UAVs en route to jails.

Deliveries of banned materials to prison inmates by drone have gotten more ambitious and audacious around the world as their frequency multiplied, but the aerial smuggling ring police in western France broke up stands out for its quasi-startup organization and efficiency.

Among all the cases of drones deployed to deliver drugs and other contraband into prisons around the globe that DroneDJ has reported over the months, the plot busted by Louisiana police this month is one of the largest and most audacious of those aerial criminal enterprises.

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 UK court has handed a total of 31 years in jail time to a seven people who operated drone deliveries of banned items to a Manchester area prison, including drugs that a testifying expert estimated were worth as much as £1.7 million ($2.16 million). 

Newly published figures are offering an idea of just how enormous the problem of drone use to deliver contraband to prisons around the world has become, showing nearly 100 suspected UAV drops made to a single Canadian jail last year alone.

Law enforcement officials in Ohio have compiled a sufficiently solid case against three suspects to secure their indictment for having flown drones to provide inmates in multiple prisons around the state with narcotics and other contraband items.

All evidence indicates that 2022 was a veritable boom year in the increasing traffic of drones flown to drop contraband into prisons around the world, with December closing out with reports of another suspected UAV delivery to a jail in Canada.

Police are investigating a DJI Mavic Pro drone that was found attempting to fly drugs worth $167,000 (AUD 250,000) into a prison in Australia.

Add Ireland to the list. Like a growing number of countries around the globe, Irish authorities say they’re now working to detect and thwart drone deliveries of contraband to the nation’s prisons, and have introduced anti-UAV technology into jails as a part of that.

A pair of men has been arrested and held by police in Georgia on charges they flew contraband – including 280 grams of meth and other drugs – into a state prison with a drone.

A Texas man has been charged for allegedly flying a DJI Inspire drone loaded with drugs and other contraband into a Fort Worth prison.

Bad people putting lousy ideas into action with the aid of remote controllers are at it again, with police in both the US and Canada recently cuffing pilots using drones to drop contraband into prisons.

In another attempt to battle the spreading problem of drones transporting contraband to prison inmates around the globe, France is soliciting bids from companies to install anti-UAV defense systems in many of the nation’s penitentiaries.

A few short months after an ex-convict received a sentence for making drone deliveries of contraband into the Fort Dix federal prison in New Jersey, a second former inmate has admitted to his role in the infamous aerial smuggling scheme.

An Atlanta-area man has become the third defendant to be remanded to federal prison for using a drone to smuggle contraband into a Georgia state prison. The prosecutions in the case are believed to be among the first in the United States under federal law regulating non-passenger aircraft.

Another day, another drone attempt to illegally fly contraband into a jail somewhere on earth. This time the Big House involved was in the French city of Nîmes, where outside accomplices respected the inmate tradition of smuggling bar-cutting tools into the prison – this time using an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) instead of a cake.

Increasing use of drones for business and pleasure has been adopted in a few places people might not have expected. Prisons, for example, where sightings of drones delivering contraband have skyrocketed in recent months around the world.

One of the most lucrative drone delivery services has been in operation for a few years without the public even being aware. A Toronto Star report reveals that drones were used “dozens” of times on deliveries to the Ontario, Canada, prison in 2019, shuttling in tens of thousands of dollars worth of drugs and contraband – including smart watches.

A man from Perth, Scotland, has been jailed for six months after being paid to fly phones into a maximum-security prison by drone. He reportedly crashed the drone before it was able to deliver the devices into HMP Edinburgh.

Police are investigating another prison drone drug drop over at the Port Phillip Prison in Melbourne, Australia. Staff at the maximum-security facility uncovered the plan on Saturday, with what appeared to be blades, mobile phones, and illegal drugs being dropped in.