The Justice Department has announced charges in a “sophisticated” criminal operation that it says used high-powered drones to deliver weapons, drugs, cell phones and escape tools into prisons in east coast states.
US Attorney William Keyes in the middle district of Georgia, along with the Federal Bureau of Prisons and FBI investigators in Atlanta, say the rogue drone operation led out of a former daycare in Macon, Georgia was a staging ground where multiple drones were launched on covert missions to deliver the contraband by air to 10 federal prisons at night.
“We’re here to announce the unsealing of an indictment that charges the most sophisticated and sprawling criminal enterprise using drones to introduce contraband into the federal prison system ever charged by the Department of Justice,” Keyes said during a press conference Wednesday.
The 17-count federal indictment alleges the group used at least six separate drones to deliver a wide-ranging bazaar of contraband to federal prisons at least 38 times, including methamphetamine, synthetic marijuana, suboxone, cocaine, cell phones, tobacco, cigarettes, drug-infused papers, and even saw blades “designed and intended to be used as weapons and to facilitate escape.”
