2 arrested in plot to fly contraband into prison with drone

Saturday night, officers from Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland (WCI) spotted a vehicle along Hazmat Drive, a side road that runs off U.S. 220 alongside the state prison complex at Cresaptown.

Moyer said intelligence inside and outside the prison led to them investigating an inmate believed to have contraband.

In the suspects’ vehicle a drone, its remote control flying console and a handgun were found.

Officials later discovered additional contraband in the cell of a inmate who is believed to have been working with the outside pair.

“You can’t make this stuff up”, said Stephen T. Moyer, Secretary of Public Safety & Correctional Services during the press conference. The arrests followed a probe by police and prison investigators.

The contraband intended for delivery included several bags of spice and dozens of doses of Suboxone, an opiate-based drug disguised in various candy wrappers and on compact discs.

The investigation also involved an inmate suspected of collaborating with the men, Moyer said.

Both men are being held; one on a $250,000 (£159,000) bail, the other without bail.

The arrests on Saturday near Cumberland highlight a growing problem for prison operators nationwide as they struggle to get ahead of the mini-helicopter technology.

Corporations and academic researchers are looking at sensors that listen for drones, pick up them up using radar or lasers and use cameras to identify threats.

The drone could carry about six to eight ounces of material, officials said. Last month, a brawl started after a package containing heroin, marijuana, and tobacco, was dropped in a prison yard in Ohio, reports the Baltimore Sunday.

A drone carrying phones, marijuana, and tobacco crashed outside the Lee Correctional Institution near Charleston, South Carolina in July of 2014.