Naples, San Carlo all'Arena neighborhood. It's 19:45 PM when the tranquility of the Salesian Don Bosco center is shattered by an unusual buzzing sound. A drone, likely operated remotely with poor skill or perhaps betrayed by the wind, becomes stuck in the branches of a tree inside the facility.
The remote pilot, realizing the danger, forces the controls: the aircraft manages to free itself and vanish into the darkness, but the maneuver costs him dearly. The hook gives way and the entire load plummets to the ground.
The “prisoner's kit”
Carabinieri from the Napoli Stella Company quickly arrived on the scene. What they recovered from the meadow wasn't just any package, but a veritable illegal "survival kit," ready to be handed over to prison.
Seized were 200 grams of hashish, a smartphone, two highly valuable micro-phones (the most sought-after because they were easy to hide in cells), 16 SIM cards, four USB sticks, as well as cables and chargers. This haul would have fetched thousands of euros on the prison black market.
The Poggioreale track and the technological escalation
The geography of the location leaves little room for interpretation. The most reliable investigative hypothesis is that the aircraft was a "flying courier" destined for the nearby Poggioreale prison.
It's no secret that drones have become the preferred means of transportation for criminals to scale prison walls and evade security, illegally dropping anything and everything into prisons. A technological challenge that severely tests prison security.
Yesterday's seizure: a system under siege
The investigators' suspicions are reinforced by a timing that seems to confirm them. Just yesterday, yet another raid took place inside the Naples prison: an inmate was reported after being found in possession of drugs and cell phones. Was the shipment dropped last night at Don Bosco intended to supply other prison "clients" or replace the merchandise recently seized?
The Carabinieri are now working on this question. The investigation is comprehensive: they are analyzing the recovered cell phones and SIM cards, in an attempt to identify the phantom "pilot" who operated the drone over Naples.
I don't know how to say it, but it seems like a strange and slightly worrying situation; not entirely scandalous, though. Drones are everywhere now, and it seems the prisons can't keep them out. The Carabinieri have done their duty, but many doubts remain about who's piloting these things.