Drone drops steak and crab legs for prisoner feast but South Carolina guards find it first

BISHOPVILLE, S.C. (AP) — ’Twas three weeks before Christmas, and in the prison yard, a drone-dropped package was found by a guard.

With steak, weed and crab legs, and cigarettes for days. And to season it all, a tin of Old Bay.

The illicit meal was dropped into the Lee Correctional Institution prison yard by a drone, the South Carolina Department of Corrections said on the social platform X with the hashtag #ContrabandChristmas.

A photo from the Bishopville prison showed a raw steak still in the grocery store packing, crab legs and Old Bay with side plastic baggies of marijuana and a couple of cartons of cigarettes. The drone was also seized Sunday morning, authorities said.

Prison officials said they are investigating and no arrests have been made.

“I’m guessing the inmates who were expecting the package are crabby,” prisons spokeswoman Chrysti Shain said.

Keeping contraband out of state prisons is a constant battle. People would toss or use a catapult to get packages of cellphones, drugs or other illegal items over the perimeter fence until officials raised the fences and added netting at the top.

People trying to smuggle things behind bars moved on to drones, leaving corrections officials to constantly patrol the prison yard and just outside for the tiny aircraft trying to drop packages.

Just flying a drone near a prison in South Carolina is a misdemeanor crime that carries up to 30 days in jail. Dropping contraband into the prison is a felony that can land someone behind bars for 10 years.