The Associated Press
CARSON CITY, Mich.- State prison officials recently foiled an inmate plot to use books checked out from a branch of the Grand Rapids Public Library to smuggle drugs into an eastern Montcalm County prison, according to court documents.
Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Edward Doyle of the Lakeview post said the scheme was discovered before any drugs entered the Carson City Correctional Facility. The plan was to have someone on the outside hide drugs within the bindings of library books that were to be lent to the prisoners.
The Michigan Department of Corrections uncovered the plan with the help of an informant. Smuggling drugs into prison is a felony.
The inmates apparently were in the early stages of the plot, “doing test runs” on books without any hidden drugs to see whether they could get them into the prison, Doyle told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Wednesday.
There have been no charges filed.
“I don’t even know if we know who the inmates are,” said Leo LaLonde, a spokesman for the prison system.
Court records described the plot:
Inmates communicated with somebody on the outside, providing titles for them to check out from the Madison Square library branch in southeastern Grand Rapids.
The outsider was to check out the books, cut open their bindings, tuck drugs inside, then reseal them. The accomplice would then return the books to the library and contact the inmates.
Investigators said the prisoners would “select unpopular books so the likelihood someone else would check them out in the interim is unlikely,” according to a search warrant at Grand Rapids District Court.
The prison system works with public libraries throughout the state to provide books on loan to prisoners, state police said.
Librarians at the prisons examine books before giving them to inmates, checking for contraband between pages and beneath covers, LaLonde said.