FAA Tracks Down Owner of Drone Used To Drop Dye In People’s Pools
A New Jersey Business owner has been arrested after allegedly using a drone to drop green dye in neighborhood pools after an investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Absecon police - who work just north of Atlantic City - said officers arrested 45-year-old Patrick Spina IV on Monday September 4th, following an investigation into cases where a drone dropped a substance into pools in the area.
Officers were first alerted on August 13th after a homeowner reported the "suspicious activity" of a drone hovering over their pool.
In a September 4th Facebook post, the Absecon Police Department said
"To the homeowner's dismay, a substance was dropped from the drone, turning the pool water an alarming shade of green. Following this incident, similar reports emerged from various other locations, including the Quality Inn in Galloway Township, where the concrete pool base suffered damage due to the dye."
"Working diligently alongside the FAA, New Jersey State Police, and Galloway Township Police, Absecon Police conducted a thorough investigation, leading them to detect the drone in flight over the Quality Inn on Friday, September 1," the department wrote.
The FAA were able to track the drone's flight back to it's starting point of Comfort Solutions Heating and Cooling, located in Galloway Township, where they encountered and arrested the owner of the business, Patrick Spina IV, who has been identified as the individual responsible for the ongoing incidents.
According to the manager of the Quality Inn affected by the dye-pack attack, the pool needed to be drained and cleaned multiple times over the course of the summer - each cleaning costing the hotel a few thousand dollars.
The manager, Sandra Woolstion, told ABC7, "I saw it totally green and I was like, 'Oh wow what is going on?' So we saw a dye pack in the bottom of the pool and we didn't know what it was."
Read more at Newsweek
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