Skip to main content

Drone crashes while smuggling weed into maximum security prison

Drone crashes while smuggling weed into maximum security prison

/

South Carolina officials believe this is the first incident in the state

Share this story

The wreckage of a drone has been found outside of a maximum security prison in South Carolina, according to Reuters. It is believed to have been used in an attempt to smuggle phones, marijuana, and tobacco into the Lee Correctional Institution. The discovery precipitated an investigation that would later lead to the arrest of 28-year-old Brenton Lee Doyle and a search for a second suspect.

State Department of Corrections spokeswoman Stephanie Givens is cited as stating "officials believe it was the first time an unmanned aircraft had been used in an effort to breach prison walls in the state." While it might be a new incident for South Carolina, similar cases have cropped up across the world. Earlier this year, Australian authorities arrested a man accused of piloting a drug-laden drone and before that, four people were apprehended in Georgia on charges of delivering tobacco to a prison yard with a UAV. With drones becoming progressively more accessible to the common man, it probably won't be long before these devices become an essential part of a smuggler's inventory.