Two men in the Russian city of Tomsk were detained last week outside a local prison, after trying to deliver a mobile phone to their friend, who’s currently an inmate at the facility. The scheme failed, despite its creativity: they taped the phone to a drone and flew it over the prison grounds in the middle of the night.
Patrol guards discovered the two suspects, both young men in their twenties, with a drone remote control and several spare mobile phones, according to the news agency RIA Novosti. One of the men reportedly served time for theft, and is a former cellmate of the current prisoner who hoped to get his hands on the airlifted mobile phone.
The two men now face administrative fines as high as 5,000 rubles ($86), and they shouldn’t expect to get back their drone quadcopter.
In January, prison guards in Murmansk also intercepted a drone carrying several mobile phones, but the aircraft’s operator fled the scene before being discovered.
