Three people convicted
Drugs worth 50,000 euros and a USB stick full of porn: smuggling drone crashes in the prison yard
The convicted woman wanted to transport the threats to prison with a small civilian drone (symbolic image)
© MARKIIAN LYSEIKO/ / Picture Alliance
An Australian woman wanted to use a small drone to supply her accomplices in prison with drugs. She was only on probation. A phone call was her undoing.
Not just from prison films and –Series shows how creative some inmates get when it comes to smuggling coveted goods behind bars. A woman in Australia tried it with a drone. Now she and two accomplices have been convicted of the failed smuggling attempt.
It was exposed last April. According to court documents, guards found the drone in the courtyard of an unspecified prison in Queensland. A small package was attached to the drone with cable ties. Apparently it crashed before reaching its destination due to an undocumented error.
Suspicious phone calls
The contents of the package left little doubt about its usefulness: In addition to a USB stick full of porn, it contained 79 doses of buprenorphine, an opiate used as a powerful painkiller, and just under a gram of methamphitamin. According to a prosecutor, the opiate doses are sold in prisons for 1,000-1,500 Australian dollars, which corresponds to around 600 to 900 euros per dose. The meth is worth around 300 euros. The total value of the drugs is between 48,000 and 72,000 euros.
The officers tracked down the perpetrators through monitored phone calls. The main suspect Cheyenne P. is said to have phoned inmate Bradley K. in prison to make deliveries to him. To disguise themselves, they pretended they were talking about a fishing trip. After the crash, she suddenly mentioned that the trip had “crashed and burst into flames.” A check of the serial number of the drone actually led to P. having bought it a month earlier.
Old acquaintance
However, the officers did not have to arrest P.: she was out on probation during the smuggling attempt, but in the meantime had to serve an eleven-year prison sentence for another drug deal. She is also linked to a fatal shooting, the trial is still pending.
A visit to prison is also nothing new for the third accomplice, Cory K.: He was only released on the day of the drone flight, when P. was supposed to explain the exact structure of the prison yard, according to the public prosecutor’s office.
The judge, however, showed mercy. Because the two men had tried to be rehabilitated and P. would still have to serve a long prison sentence anyway, she decided on a 16-month sentence for each. Those who had already served their time in pre-trial detention. The two men were therefore released on probation immediately after the verdict.
Sources: The Guardian, 1 News