Gang leader is sentenced to 15 years in jail with 1,500 whip lashes for smuggling drugs into prison using drone

A gang leader who used a drone to smuggle drugs into a Saudi Arabian prison has been jailed for 15 years and will be given 1,500 whip lashes, it has been reported.
The daring operation is said to have occurred in 2014 when the small remote-controlled drone delivered 1,997 Captigon narcotic pills and 115 grams of hashish into the Briman Prison in Jeddah.
The drone landed on the roofs of barracks No. 7 and 8 at the prison after being controlled from a nearby supermarket by two brothers of the leader, The Saudi Gazette reported.
Once inside the jail, a prisoner would have turned salesman and transferred the proceeds to a bank account while other prisoners would have retrieved the drone from the roof.

However, a guard in the prison's control tower saw the drone flying into the grounds and blew the whistle on the operation.
The Saudi Arabia attorney general had objected in the Summary Court in Jeddah to the jail sentence - considering it to be extremely light and called for capital punishment for the main defendant.
The unnamed leader had already served 15 years in jail for drug trafficking previously.

A Lebanese expatriate who sold the drone to the smuggler for about SR5,000 (£1,000) was given 1000 lashes and will be deported after serving a prison term of 10 years.
Seven other accomplices in the operation were sentenced to prison terms of between three and 10 years.
More than SR200,000 (£40,000) in cash was found with the gang, an intelligence report had revealed.
It was reported that two prison guards accused of facilitating the entry of the drugs were acquitted.