Drones, Drugs, and Prison

[Player-Pe]

2 Sacramento drone pilots charged with flying drugs into California state prisons

 

[SteveR43]

I will never understand how these people get caught.

By a cheap drone, don't register it, by it in cash, put a drop device on it or simple do a kamikaze mission with a really cheap drone and no one will know who did it.
I really wonder if these stories of people getting caught are made up.
Are we supposed to believe a registered drone owner makes drops like this?

Something is fishy here.

The article says how they were doing it, but not how they were caught. OF COURSE.

The only way they could have gotten caught, is if law enforcement used a wifi tracking device to locate the RC transmission source. Then they could have surrounded that area where the signal was coming from. Then maybe send a heli or drone in with heat sensing cams to catch them in the process of committing the crime. They may have simply scanned the grounds around the prison with heat sensing cams to catch them. I'm trying to answer my own question.

 

[anotherlab]

The subject line of the article is slightly misleading. Three people were charged as unlicensed drone pilots (among other things), and a 4th man charged was the inmate on the receiving end of things. The press release (Four Indicted in Scheme to Deliver Drugs into State Prisons by Drone) linked to the article posted by the OP is clearer on the details.

 

[Anthony Ivory]

OKAY, You guys are too old to understand the basics.

-It’s easy to detect ,monitor and track a cell phones in a prison.
-Wi-Fi is easy to detect with just another phone nothing fancy.
-Jammers / detectors are cheap.

Have you ever noticed that they let them make a few drops before they bust them It so they can take down more people.
If you attempt a crime and the last time you read a book was just before you dropped out of school they have a cell waiting for you.

 

[Looking Down On You]

Here is my take on this...
1. They did not have a Part 107 which everyone knows you need to fly around prisons.
2. They were a couple of old farts with drones who got tricked into flying into the prison yard.
3. After the prison guard shot the drone down, they went looking for it based on the last known location and when they couldn't find it they sent a replacement request to DJI. DJI reported it to the ChiComs and the rest is history.

 

[MA2 317]

And you wonder why they call it DOPE.

.

 

[anotherlab]

Here is my take on this...
1. They did not have a Part 107 which everyone knows you need to fly around prisons.
2. They were a couple of old farts with drones who got tricked into flying into the prison yard.
3. After the prison guard shot the drone down, they went looking for it based on the last known location and when they couldn't find it they sent a replacement request to DJI. DJI reported it to the ChiComs and the rest is history.

I take it you didn't actually read the press release

All three of the "pilots" are 34 years old. They are not "old farts" now, but they'll be close to that stage of life when they make parole.