Enterprising couple pioneered drone delivery service – for drugs, police say

Drones are widely expected to revolutionize commercial deliveries. Count this couple among the early adopters.

Benjamin Paul Baldassarre, 39, and Ashley Lauren Carroll, 31, were arrested Dec. 21 on suspicion of using a drone to deliver drugs to customers in a parking lot near their Riverside, California, home, according to the Riverside Police Department.

In early December, residents complained to police about drone activity in their neighborhood. Officers observed a drone leave the back yard of a home and fly to a parking lot, where it dropped a package of drugs recovered by waiting customers, police wrote on Facebook.

The parking lot belonged to a church, police told The Associated Press. After receiving their delivery, customers drove past the home and tossed cash onto the front lawn.

“It’s literally a cat-and-mouse game,” Officer Dylan Railsback told The Riverside Press-Enterprise. “It’s a new way of chasing the mouse.”

Officers served a search warrant on the home Dec. 21, where they discovered hypodermic syringes and drugs suspected to include fentanyl, methamphetamine and candy laced with LSD, along with the drone, Riverside police reported on Facebook.

Police found a 9-year-old girl, reported by The Associated Press to be Baldassarre’s daughter, living in the home, officers wrote. They found a vape pen containing marijuana in her bedroom. County child protective services workers took custody of the child, who was later released to her mother.

Baldassarre and Carroll face charges of possession of controlled substances for sale, child endangerment and possession of drug paraphernalia. Carroll pleaded not guilty Tuesday, while Baldassarre’s arraignment was postponed, reported The Riverside Press-Enterprise.

“Even though this was a new and creative technique for a drug dealer to deliver his product to a customer, it was kind of just good old-fashioned police work, going out to the neighborhood, doing surveillance and developing a probable cause for a search warrant,” Railsback told the newspaper.

This story was originally published December 28, 2017 at 9:21 AM with the headline "Enterprising couple pioneered drone delivery service – for drugs, police say."