Man Arrested While Attempting To Shoot Communications Gear Into Jail Using Crossbow

A man has been arrested after a failed attempt to send communications gear into a prison using a crossbow.

Cornelius Bazarov, 21, was apprehended by prison guards for trying to send mobile communication devices and related paraphernalia into a prison in Southern Russia. Bazarov was planning to shoot a total of 18 mobile phones, spare batteries, and earpieces individually into the prison campus using a single crossbow.

The unsuccessful attempt ended even before it had begun, when Bazarov was spotted by a guard loitering suspiciously near a prison wall. The guard, upon seeing Bazarov, immediately hit the alarm button, invoking an immediate lockdown of the prison campus. However, the guards needn’t have worried about the inmates since Bazarov chose to execute his daring act at 1.50 a.m. The guards are still wondering how Bazarov planned to ensure the unique delivery was picked up.

When the alarm button was hit, Bazarov took off, but he stumbled midway in the bushes and was quickly apprehended by the guards who knew the surrounding area well. However, an intensive search that lasted until the early morning hours was required to recover a bag that was on Bazarov. He had apparently ditched the bag a good 100 meters from the prison. But once its contents were examined, it was clear what Bazarov was up to.

The bag recovered by the police contained 10 crossbow bolts, phones, SIM cards, and a crossbow.

Speaking about the importance of having communications gear inside a jail, Prison spokesman Daniel Krylov said, “Phones are almost as bad as drugs in prison… When inmates get their hands on them they have access to their criminal network and can even commit crimes while they’re safely in here with an alibi.”

Following the daring but foolhardy attempt at delivering communications gear into a heavily guarded prison, Bazarov has been remanded and is now facing jail time that will be decided by the local judge. However, owing to the sheer number of cellphones and the chosen timing to execute the plan, prison authorities are not ruling out the possibility of someone on the inside working with Bazarov. Moreover, the exact reason why he tried to complete this bizarre plan remains a mystery.

Prison management in other countries has come across such laughable attempts at delivering multiple items ranging from contraband to weapons using modern technology. Hence, using a medieval crossbow certainly appears old-school in comparison to drones.

[Image Credit | CEN]