ATLANTA — Federal prosecutors described it as the largest smuggling ring arrest in U.S. history for using drones to get contraband into prisons.
One of the prisons targeted was the U.S. federal penitentiary in southeast Atlanta.
The indictment stated that garbage bags full of cell phones, cigarettes and drugs were found by prison staff on the other side of the fence multiple times.
But the conspiracy allegedly stretched from Georgia all the way up to Virginia and down to Mississippi.
FBI agents and local police surrounded multiple homes across metro Atlanta and Macon, taking suspects in the drone smuggling ring into custody. They said 38 alleged drone deliveries were made to federal prisons in Georgia and seven other states.
“This is the largest charge on an organization doing this kind of activity in the history of the United States,” said Will Keyes, U.S. Attorney Middle District Of Georgia.
Six heavy payload drones were used to smuggle contraband into 10 different federal prisons, officials said.
The unsealed criminal indictment charged 12 people in a criminal conspiracy allegedly smuggling drugs like meth and marijuana, cell phones and even weapons.
The Indictment alleges that the crew used a former daycare in Macon they nicknamed “the lab” to store their contraband and load up those drones for their missions.
“Some state and federal prison drone smuggling contraband have been so frequent that the facility looked like a small airport in the evening,” said Marlo Graham, FBI Atlanta.
Channel 2 Action News has been reporting for years on problems with contraband being smuggled into the federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
One Atlanta inmate bragged on Facebook Live how he can always get a cell phone.
A photo from one sweep showed some of the 800 cellphones confiscated in 2021.
Channel 2 even reported on inmates coming and going as they pleased through holes in the fence and pictures of parties with contraband booze.
Keyes says drone use increases the challenge of fighting the flow of contraband.
“Just by the nature of these drones, they’re fast moving, they’re remote. It’s a challenge for law enforcement. But I think that’s what this case demonstrates is that we are at the speed to tackle this problem,” he said.
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