Weed, whiskey, cell phones part of busted construction smuggling attempt at SC prison
The front gate search team at a South Carolina prison thought they were letting in a piece of construction equipment to repair the facility. But the equipment carried more than ability to mend a leaky roof.
The South Carolina Department of Corrections announced that search team members thwarted $60,000 in contraband that was hidden in construction equipment from entering McCormick Correctional Institution on Wednesday.
“This volume and this amount is not an everyday thing,” corrections director Bryan Stirling said. “It happens every once in a while.”
The piece of equipment held a variety of contraband items including:
- five pounds of marijuana
- a half gallon of “brown liquor”
- 32 smart phones with 33 chargers, and 31 USB plugs
- 17 pairs of earbuds
- 27 pounds of tobacco
- 47 lighters
Sterling compared the seizure to a trooper pulling over a car and finding it full of drugs.
Corrections department spokesperson Chrysti Shain said she couldn’t say what kind of equipment was used in the smuggling scheme but said the department sometimes has to bring in heavy equipment like bulldozers or lifts.
Investigators with the corrections department are gathering information on the contraband operation “to try to determine which inmates were involved and what persons on the outside were involved in hiding it on the equipment,” Shain said.
The contraband will be cataloged and stored in a department evidence locker, she said.
While the smuggling attempt shows the contraband trade in prison is still strong, the bust also shows new methods are working to create a “contraband funnel” in which the the illegal items are more easily detected.
“We’re trying to squeeze the contraband pipeline, and I think you see that today with our innovation when they try to sneak it in this avenue,” Stirling said.
But no amount of technology works better than the corrections officers and search teams that did their job in the bust, Stirling said.
“They did a really good job,” the director said. “We can put all the nets and other technology in but we need those officers doing what they did today.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 4:18 PM.