Inside the double life of the gangster granny drone queen who flew £1.4million worth of contraband into prisons while raising five children

The mastermind of a gang of organised criminals who dropped drugs over British prisons using drones was not who the police had expected.

By day, 47-year-old Lucy Adcock appeared to be a devoted single mother of five – driving the children to school, making tea for them and preparing for the arrival of her new grandchild.

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But by night, Adcock was a gangster's grandma – the unlikely “head of operations” for an organized crime gang who recruited accomplices to carry out her brazen deliveries.

Within a month, she was responsible for sending almost £1.5 million worth of contraband, including drugs and mobile phones, through the walls of six of Britain's most secure prisons.

From her home in Ruislip, west London, she hired four “ground crew” to unload packages containing cocaine, the drug Spice, mobile phones and SIM cards that would make a fortune behind bars.

It was like a military operation, and Adcock directed everything from “mission control” – her fairly unremarkable family car, which she parked up to 20 miles from each of the prisons.

In the middle of the night, she sent gang members to the prisons to launch high-powered drones that were powerful enough to carry the illegal cargo being transported beneath them.

The contraband was wrapped in cling film and stuffed into a man's sock with fishing hooks attached to the material.

Once the drone was in position over the cut, the operators dropped their payload, which landed in a prison exercise yard.

The residents trapped inside threw “ropes” made of torn bedsheets out of the barred windows so that they became caught on the fishing hooks.

They could then lug the sock-filled supplies back to their cells and sell or trade the contents.

Telephones could be “rented” to prisoners for £100 a night or sold for up to £10,000 in cash.

This system was used in a number of prisons, including Parc in Bridgend, Gartree in Market Harborough, Leics, Onley in Rugby, Warks, Guys Marsh in Shaftesbury (Dorset), High Down in Sutton (Surrey) and The Mount near Hemel Hempstead (Herts).

Today, The Sun can reveal the full, incredible story of how the respectable-looking Adcock became part of a criminal organization – and how greed sealed her downfall.

At the family's terraced house on an elegant tree-lined avenue, Adcock's daughter Leah Woolterton, 23, claimed her mother was visited by someone who forced her to take control of the drug trade to pay off a former partner's prison debt – and threatened her if she did not cooperate.

She said her mother cared for children aged seven and 14, as well as a 29-year-old daughter with learning difficulties, and had no choice but to comply with the order.

Adcock recruited a team of four other people, including two women, to help her deliver the contraband.

Leah told The Sun: “It’s not a great situation.

“Of course she would have done things differently if she could.

“Her ex-partner forced her to do it.

“She did indeed play a role in this, we are not saying she didn't.

“But it all started in prison.

“It was a debt that had been paid off and then they showed up here.”

Adcock's double life as mother and crime boss seemed to work perfectly for several weeks, until May last year.

The day that marked the beginning of the end for her began like any other with a stay in prison.

She loaded a powerful drone, the kind used by anglers to drop bait over fishing spots, into the trunk of her car.

She also packed Class A and B drugs as well as several mobile phones, SIM cards and charging cables.

Adcock typically transported the drone and cargo to her crew members and met them again after the delivery was completed.

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The prisoners' orders that she approved for delivery included cocaine, the opioid Subutex, the anabolic steroid oxandrolone, the painkiller phenacetin, cannabis resin and A4 sheets of paper soaked in the synthetic cannabinoid Spice.

The hiding places also contained iPhones, SIM cards, chargers and tobacco.

On that fateful day, Adcock waved goodbye to her family and drove 165 miles west on the M4 to Bridgend in South Wales, where she booked a room at a Premier Inn.

But in the early hours of May 11, two guards at HMP Parc, near the motorway on the outskirts of the city, heard a roar in the air.

The prison was already on high alert because a drone pilot working for Adcock managed to escape by dropping £50,000 worth of contraband for the prison's black market onto the yard on 24 April.

This was not the first illegal delivery at HMP Parc.

The year before, Simeon Richards, then 22, had attached an orange and black football sock to a drone, which contained four packages, including 399 buprenorphine tablets, 30 grams of cannabis and eleven mobile phones with chargers.

He was caught hiding in bushes near the prison.

Beginning of the end

At his trial, prosecutors said the buprenorphine had changed hands in prison for between £12,000 and £18,000.

The value of the cannabis was between £2,240 and £6,720, and the value of the phones was up to £11,000.

As Adcock's drone flew over the prison in the early hours of May 11, particularly vigilant guards quickly spotted two packages containing drugs and phones dropped in the yard.

South Wales Police were alerted and automatic number plate recognition detected a West London registered car near the prison.

Adcock's car was soon found three miles away outside the Premier Inn in Bridgend, with the drone in the boot. She was arrested.

When police technicians downloaded the device's software, flights over six prisons were displayed, including the time and direction, as well as take-off and landing points.

Computer analysts determined that one of the flights had taken place at 4:33 a.m. to Onley Prison. The drone was in the air for 17 minutes.

On Adcock's confiscated cell phone, they found messages between her and the team she had assembled to carry out the drops.

One simply said, “High.” Another, from a concerned ground crew member, said, “It's really heavy.”

Adcock replied that the weight of the cargo was 1,047 grams, which was well within the capabilities of the drone.

Her ex-partner forced her to do it. She actually played a role in it, we're not saying she didn't do it.

Leah Woolterton

With the help of the ANPR, police were able to track Adcock's car at least three times as it travelled to locations in the Midlands, the South East and Wales.

Under her command, drones flew over the prisons 22 times.

By analyzing their telephone records, the police also got to know their ground staff, including the two women.

The prison value of their releases in April and May last year was estimated at between £1 million and £1.42 million.

Detective Inspector Ian Jones, who led the investigation codenamed Operation Wormit, said: “We quickly established that Lucy Adcock was the key member of this organised crime gang.”

“It was clear that she was not flying the drone herself.

“She was in contact with the other members and orchestrated every drone incursion.

“We have seen other examples where drones have been used in isolation for an airdrop, and we can usually prove that there is contact between the person flying the drone and someone in the prison.

“This investigation revealed that this was an organized criminal group that was traveling almost every other day to fly to a prison by plane or drone.”

The senior police officer added: “Lucy Adcock defended herself by arguing that she had to pay a drug debt owed by her partner who was in prison.

“The investigation into this matter found no evidence to support Adcock’s allegations.

“She had previously seen how lucrative this type of activity could be and subsequently carried out drug drops by drone into six prisons. This would have required someone to receive the contraband in the prison and provide the exact coordinates.

“Adcock's efforts were so successful that she recruited more members for her organised crime gang and generated an income of thousands of pounds.

“The driving motive behind this was financial gain for Adcock and her co-conspirators.”

We quickly realised that Lucy Adcock was the main member of this organised crime gang. It was clear that she was not flying the drone herself.

Detective Inspector Ian Jones

Adcock was sentenced to six years in prison last month after pleading guilty to conspiracy to transport so-called A and B list items.

Its crew also admitted their involvement in the operations.

Craig Davenport, 46, received four years and nine months behind bars, while Ryan Dorland, 45, was sentenced to four years.

Nicola Ogle, 43, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison.

Today the last gang member, Emma Watson from West London, who also pleaded guilty, is due to be sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court.

The money the gang made by smuggling drugs into prisons could be seized at a proceeds of crime hearing later this year.

Adcock's daughter Leah said: “If you plead guilty, there's not much you can do, is there?

“She just wants to get out and get it over with.

“She has an appointment for when she will be coming home. Then hopefully we can start over, move away and everything will be fine.

“We are not millionaires.

“We don’t have millions of pounds.

“Our cars are financed.

“She has a disabled daughter and receives social benefits.

“We have nothing.”

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