WASHINGTON:
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.