Riverdale Woman Charged With Trying To Smuggle $35K Of Narcotics To Md. Prison Inmate
TOWSON, Md. (WJZ) — A Riverdale woman allegedly tried to smuggle in over $35,000 worth of narcotics to an inmate at a Maryland prison on Sunday, the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said.
Tania Ramirez was visiting the prison when Eastern Correctional Institution correctional officers recovered the narcotic suboxone from her as she was allegedly trying to get it into the prison.
She is accused of tossing two blue packages containing 353 of the orange-colored strips of suboxone.
A visiting room officer said he spotted Ramirez toss the containers over the visiting room wall in the western compound of the state's largest prison.
The officer grabbed the material and contacted the department's drug-sniffing K-9 unit who alerted on the packages, indicating the drugs, officials said.
The thin film drug sells for about $3 when prescribed by a doctor, but department officials said inmates can gain about $1,000 a strip selling it illegally to inmates in the facilities.
There's been a slew of drug busts by department officers in Maryland as of late. Last month, a Baltimore attorney was charged with sneaking the drug to one of his clients at the Maryland Correctional Institution-Hagerstown.
Attorney Arrested For Smuggling Drugs Into Prison
That same month, a Western Correctional Institution officer in Cumberland, Md., found a package of the narcotic stashed near an inmate road crew, officials said.
Charges against the inmate, who is serving 20 years for second-degree murder, are pending.
