23 indicted in alleged schemes to smuggle drugs, phones into Georgia prisons with drones

Shoes sit under a prisoner's bed in his cell on death row at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, Dec. 1, 2015, in Jackson, Ga. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

Federal prosecutors have indicted 23 people, most of them current and former inmates, in what authorities said Wednesday were schemes to smuggle drugs and cellphones into Georgia state prisons using drones.

Indictments in two similar cases were unsealed Tuesday in U.S. District Court after being handed down by a grand jury last month. The indictments allege inmates used contraband cellphones to coordinate drone deliveries with defendants outside the prisons.

Drones were used to drop marijuana. methamphetamine and contraband phones into the yards at Smith State Prison in Glennville, Telfair State Prison in McRae-Helena and others over a five-year period beginning in 2019, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Jill Steinberg’s office.