Drone eyed in smuggling porn, drugs into jail

In this December 15, 2014 file photo, a security guard watches a demonstration of a DJI Technology Co. Inspire 1 drone in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong province. Drones have become a hit with some suspected of using them for smuggling drugs and porn into a jail in the US. AP

WASHINGTON, United States — Two men are in custody in the US state of Maryland on suspicion of trying to smuggle drugs and pornography into a prison with a drone, corrections officials said Monday.

Synthetic marijuana and bootleg pornographic DVDs were among the items that the duo intended to fly into the state prison in Cumberland.

“You couldn’t make this stuff up,” Maryland’s Secretary of Public Safety Stephen Moyer was quoted as telling local reporters.

The Maryland Department of Public Safety said in a statement that the two suspects were arrested on a road that runs by the Western Correctional Institution.

In their vehicle, officers found a quadracopter and its remote control flying console, as well as a handgun, the statement alleged.

Both men were being held in Cumberland — one on $250,000 bail and the other without bail — on suspicion of plotting to use a drone to airlift contraband into a correctional facility.

An inmate suspected of participating in the foiled effort is also facing charges after a search of his prison cell turned up contraband, the statement said.

It was thought to be the first time in Maryland that smugglers have been caught using a drone to overfly a prison wall.

Earlier this month, a bid to airlift tobacco, marijuana and heroin into an Ohio prison using a drone triggered a melee among some 75 inmates.

In July 2014, another drone bearing marijuana, tobacco and cell phones crashed outside a wire fence that surrounds a maximum security facility in South Carolina.