Pegasus team officers at the aerodrome in Binissalem. | Ramirez

TW
0

The Guardia Civil's Pegasus Team is popularly know as the air police. One of its tasks to maintain surveillance of the airspace over the prison in Palma.

The head of the team in the Balearics, Enrique Monter explains: "At some prisons on the mainland there have been cases when inmates have communicated to family or friends the times when they were going to be in the yard or in common areas, so that, with the help of a small aircraft (a drone), forbidden substances could be supplied. Fortunately, and thanks to the controls carried out here, we have no evidence of drugs entering the prison by air."

This surveillance of the prison allows the team to shoot down drones and to locate the position of the drone pilot and issue a sanction.

The air police carry out functions related to general aviation at the airport and aerodromes. And when needed, wider surveillance is provided.

This has been the case over the past week in checking on drugs that haven't fallen from the sky but which have arrived by sea. Drones have been used by individuals who have been trying to spot bundles of hashish that fell into the sea some nine or ten days ago. The air police have been called in to locate these pilots.