Drone Delivery Intercepted at Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone Prison
By Jean-Marc Aubert
Published on Sep 3, 2025 at 10:31 a.m.
It wasn’t a UFO: gendarmes from the night patrol unit of the castelnau-le-Lez company heard a suspicious noise in the sky and then observed a flying object near the Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone penitentiary center in the night of Sunday, august 31st to Monday, september 1st, 2025, around 1 a.m. The object was identified as a drone flying over the establishment located on route de Sète, in the Larzat economic zone.
The officers discreetly tracked the drone’s movement, which led them to the pilot delivering a package to an inmate who was retrieving it through his cell window. The 19-year-old from Montpellier was arrested at the scene on a dirt road near the prison and taken into police custody.
(Map of Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone Penitentiary Center)
The gendarmes confiscated a battery for recharging the drone, the drone itself, and the items the pilot intended to deliver to the prison yard: mobile phones and tobacco.