Indictment: SC inmates used dairy, State House to smuggle items

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina attorney general says 17 people have been indicted for helping to smuggle drugs, cigarettes, cell phones and other contraband into state prisons.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson on Friday announced the indictments in what his office described as "sophisticated and highly lucrative conspiracies" to smuggle large amounts of contraband into the South Carolina prisons.

The indictments allege that inmates used a prison dairy farm, bread deliveries from a Columbia bakery and State House inmate work crews to help move the forbidden items into prisons.

According to the indictment, people would hide the items on the farmland, by the bakery or at locations in or around the State House, and inmate work crews would bring the items into the prisons.

Read more top trending stories on wsoctv.com:

• Community petitions to allow father of slain kidnapped teen into US for funeral
• Armed man upset with neighbors shot by officers in east Charlotte, police say
• George H. W. Bush: 41st president dead at 94
• WATCH: Jaclyn Shearer's Sunday forecast outlook 
• Police identify man shot, killed outside northeast Charlotte apartment complex

Associated Press