Drones to deliver drugs and cell phones to prison

Drugs, cell phones and money arrived inside the prison “Pietro Cerulli” by Trapani from heaven, thanks to drones remote-controlled or soccer balls thrown over the perimeter wall.

The investigation also involves four penitentiary police officers, one has died and three have retired. Seventeen orders of custody in prison, five under house arrest and two orders to remain at home. Also involved is a minor who modified smartphones sent into prison. Thirty people are under investigation

. The operation, not coincidentally called “Alcatraz” from the name of the prison on the island of San Francisco, was born from some environmental interceptions of prisoners who passed through the prison in Trapani and then transferred to other penal institutions. The investigators found that following the payment of money, and in one case also in exchange for sexual services from the partner of a prisoner, it was possible to receive microcell phones and narcotics.

Fifty cell phones were seized along with improper weapons, cigarettes and perfumes. Two prisoners in particular, convicted of murder and linked to organized crime, one to the Sacra Corona Unita and the other to the Camorra, would have been the "pivots" of the organization in prison also taking advantage of some jobs inside the penitentiary for which the high security departments would have mixed with the ordinary ones.

The delivery methods were different: “stuffed” balls outside and then kicked inside the prison in the section where there are no video surveillance cameras, before being recovered by rogue officers and delivered to the inmates who would set up a real drug dealing and cell phone rental business.

But the “goods” also arrived with drones that flew undisturbed over the penitentiary, not far from the city's seafront. During a press conference, the prosecutor of Trapani Gabriele Paci, said that the "Cerulli" was a "blessed" place for the inmates and added that the "tolerant" behavior of some agents "has been reported to the Penitentiary Police Department for appropriate measures". "This activity is not our responsibility - the magistrate pointed out - these are administrative actions that fall under the jurisdiction of the institute".

Paci stressed, however, that "this illicit activity does not only occur in the Trapani prison but also in other penal institutions" and that "the phenomenon concerns the entire national territory". The investigation concerns a period between 2019 and April 2022, but even today, during some searches in the cells, narcotic substances were found and seized.