Drugs, cigarettes and McDonald's sandwiches: Deputies bust duo accused of jail drone drops
Drugs, cellphones, cigarettes, and more- that's what the Fulton County Sheriff says was headed for the Fulton County Jail in a drone drop.
But investigators stopped it before liftoff and made some arrests.
Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat said his investigators recovered a drone Tuesday night and much, much more that investigators believe was headed into the jail, where it could've caused big problems.
'This is one of the largest contraband interdictions that we have had in the last four years,' Labat told Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne.
Labat said his team grounded a drone smuggling operation Tuesday night before it could deliver a stunning array of contraband, ranging from drugs to nine cellphones to cigarettes.
'How valuable is tobacco in the jail?' Winne asked Labat.
'Well, that's thousands of dollars,' Labat told Winne.
Natalie Ammons with the sheriff's office said the sheriff's criminal investigations division got a tip and sheriff's FAST Unit investigator Jermaine Moore happened to be in the area he needed to be to do a traffic stop on a car where he saw a drone, a drone controller and more inside
'What'd you find in the car with a drone?' Winne asked Moore.
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'Marijuana, cell phone chargers, nine cell phones, oxycodone, various pills, cord, like 550 cord which is used to make the drops using the drone, and the packaging materials,' Moore said.
Moore said they also found 48 packages of cigarettes and over 100 loose cigarettes and suspected oxycodone.
The sheriff's office said that Jeffery Jenkins and Richard Redding have been charged with a long list of crimes relating to the drone and where the sheriff's office suspects it was intended to deliver contraband.
Their car was stopped within a mile of the jail.
Ammons said similar packaging leads investigators to suspect the same drone operation may have been behind a drop of McDonald's Chicken Sandwiches, suspected oxycodone and more that was discovered stuck in jail fencing this past weekend, as if it got stuck there during an attempted drone drop.
'We are combating technology with technology and good old-fashioned detective work. And so, as we continue to investigate, we continue be really cognizant of the fact that this is a new trend,' Labat said.
Winne questioned the men accused in the drone drop.
'Were you involved with any drone drop operation?' Winne asked Redding.
'I was just the driver,' Redding said.
'Did you know what they were gonna do? How much were you paid?' Winne asked him.
'Chump change,' Redding said.
'Especially compared to the time you're now facing if you're convicted of it?' Winne asked Redding.
'Yessir, but I didn't do anything,' Redding said.
As for Jenkins, he said he had no comment other than he was innocent.
The sheriff told Winne that he believes more than half the contraband that comes into the jail comes via drone and that cellphones and tobacco are illegal to have within the Fulton County Jail.
He said he has reached out to other sheriffs and the Georgia Department of Corrections to see if there are similarities to what they are seeing.
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'Sometimes, as with the anti-communist paramilitaries in Colombia and death squads in 1980s El Salvador, the officials colluded with the groups out of some ideological alliance,' he said. 'Sometimes, as with corrupt Mexican cops who assist organized crime, they do it because they profit from it.' In spite of existing court orders and legal challenges, the Trump administration continues its deportation policy in El Salvador, in partnership with the county's President Nayib Bukele. Venezuelan migrants have been targeted in particular for deportation, many on unproven allegations of gang affiliation. That said, Trump has also repeatedly said he's 'all for' looking for ways to detain U.S. citizens in foreign jails. Should we be calling what's happening now 'forced disappearances'? A report released by the UN in April suggests yes. The incommunicado detentions appeared to involve 'enforced disappearances, contrary to international law,' the report said. 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' The raids and deportations have certainly struck fear into American communities ― another classic characteristic of enforced disappearances. The Trump administration has openly said that its goal is to try to make life so difficult for immigrants that they 'self-deport.' Fear of being sent to a notorious El Salvador prison, where inmates never see the light of day, plays into that goal, said Rod Abouharb, an associate professor of international relations who researches forced disappearances at the University College London. 'These raids send out a chilling effect on those individuals who may be undocumented and even those who are legally in the United States: that they may be caught up in one of these raids, disappear into the prison system, and deported to a third country they may have no connection with,' he told HuffPost. What can regular citizens do in response to enforced disappearances? Pacific Press / Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images The best thing Americans can do to object to efforts like this is to draw as much attention as possible to individual cases, Lopez said. 'Whether that's by holding protests, creating online petitions or posting on social media, ensuring that a person who the government has tried to disappear remains visible and in the public discourse can be a powerful way to draw national attention to their plight and the plight of others like them.' he said. Isacson thinks it's important to encourage senate and congressional Democrats who've stood up and made headlines, like Sen. Chris Van Hollen (Md.). Back in April, Van Hollen pushed for a face-to-face meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia ― a Salvadoran native living in Maryland who was deported in March to El Salvador despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution. 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