A basketball packed with tobacco and cellphones sits on a t able next to a drone equipped with a mechanism for dropping deep-sea fishing lures, repurposed to deliver contraband instead.

Arranged around those items are piles of tightly wrapped packages reeking of pot, a handful of knives and more phones, each about the size of a thumb. The display represents just a fraction of the spoils seized by a pilot project targeting drone smuggling at prisons in Kingston, Ont.

The display is a testament to the success of the program, but also evidence of the ever-evolving challenge facing police and corrections staff, as inmates and organized crime groups innovate new ways to smuggle drugs and weapons behind bars.

For the past nine months, a joint task force made up of local police and correctio

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