by Ty Tagami | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Drones powerful enough to lift a human have become a routine tool for delivering contraband in Georgia prisons.
At a hearing Monday about the budget for prisons, Tyrone Oliver, the commissioner for the state Department of Corrections, said drones have been used to drop drugs laced with fentanyl and other goods, including power saws made by the company Dremel.
“We’ve confiscated drones that are large enough to lift 225 pounds,” he said. “We had one earlier today that can lift about 80 pounds or 90 pounds.”
He said the pilots pay people who live near prisons thousands of dollars to borrow their driveways to stage the flights.
Other methods for delivering contraband were more time-honored, such as moving it with the help of prison staff or through the mail, delivering it during inmate visitations or tossing product over fences and walls.
Matthew Wolfe, who leads the agency’s Office of Professional Standards, said couriers wrap tape around bundles, forming them into football-sized packages shaped for throwing.
He said enforcement against contraband had led to the arrests of 48 prison staff in fiscal year 2025, which ended in July. There were also 120 inmates charged and 362 civilians arrested, many in connection with drone flights, he said.
“Civilian involvement remains the most common threat vector, with throwovers and drone drops continuing to be the primary method used to infiltrate our institutions,” Wolfe said.
The prisons have tried defensive measures, such as retrofitting windows so that drones can no longer deliver to outstretched hands. But Oliver said that has not stopped rooftop drops from high in the sky.
The prisons have tried to track offenders, but they must capture them on the ground, in person. They cannot just shoot the drones out of the sky, or disable them in some other way, even when they fly over a prison.
That is because the aircraft are protected by federal law.
“The technology is out there. We just don’t have the authority, the legal authority, to be able to do it,” Oliver told Rep. Danny Mathis, R-Cochran, a member of the House panel.
“I hate that your hands are tied,” Mathis said. “That’s what bothers me the most. This is just insane.”
