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High-Tech Smuggling: Drone Drops Drugs in Ohio Prison Yard

The drone deposited a package containing enough tobacco for seven packs of smokes, enough marijuana for about 70 joints and a dollop of heroin that could yield more than 100 doses at Ohio's Mansfield Correctional Institution.

(TNS) — Whatever the drone dropped as it buzzed the prison recreation yard, some inmates figured it was worth a fight.. The drone deposited a package containing enough tobacco for seven packs of smokes, enough marijuana for about 70 joints and a dollop of heroin that could yield more than 100 doses at Ohio's Mansfield Correctional Institution.

While the airborne delivery sparked a brawl as inmates tussled over the package, it didn’t ultimately reach its intended target. Corrections officers found it hidden in a rec-yard equipment room.

The high-tech flyby at a week ago Wednesday represents a harder-to-fight means of smuggling contraband to those held behind the walls of state prisons.

While prison officials have always been vigilant for visitors, employees and mail transporting illicit materials into prisons, drones are a different, here-and-gone beast in which a remote-control conspirator remains hidden.

Officials at the Mansfield prison didn’t realize the drone had paid a visit until surveillance camera video was reviewed while investigating the fight precipitated by its appearance.

It wasn’t the first appearance of a drone over an Ohio prison. But, state officials could not immediately provide details on the other over flights on Tuesday.

“Our agency’s top security administrators are taking a broad approach to increase awareness and detection of unmanned aerial systems,” said Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokeswoman JoEllen Smith.

Ohio isn’t alone in experiencing the unwanted aerial visitors. They are popping up over other prisons across the U.S., sometimes dropping forbidden smartphones and chargers, in addition to drugs.

The State Highway Patrol is investigating the incident to determine who flew the drone and for whom its package was destined at the prison about 60 miles northeast of Columbus.

The drone came buzzing over the prison about 2:30 p.m. last Wednesday. A report said a fight broke out between prisoners in the north recreation yard of the prison about the time the drone was determined to have dropped the drug package.

During the scuffle, the package was thrown over a fence from the north recreation yard to the south yard, where it was hidden in an equipment room, the report said. Officials also searched roofs for any other packages, but found none.

Corrections officers used pepper spray to douse the fighting and about 200 prisoners from both the north and south recreation yards were carefully searched before being returned to their cells.

Nine inmates involved in the scramble for the package were placed in solitary confinement. There were no injuries to prisoners or prison employees. The prison contains about 2,700 inmates, most of them in close security.

Prison officials long have kept a close eye on prison walls to intercept items — such as tennis balls containing drugs — being thrown over walls to fences to inmates.

A drone drug drop, though? Smuggling indeed has gone high-tech.

©2015 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.