Kissimmee woman arrested for Gulf CI contraband smuggling attempt
The Port St. Joe Police Department arrested a Kissimmee woman on June 18 in connection to the discovery of contraband materials packaged to be smuggled into the Gulf Correctional Institution.
Caridad Martin, 34, whose husband is in Gulf Correctional, was arrested for possession of items packaged for smuggling into the prison inside a body cavity.
The police department said this is the most common method of packaging these materials that they come across.
“Today, working with DOC inspectors, we arrested a female who traveled from Kissimee, Florida to drop a package for inmates at a local park,” PSJPD said in a social media post.
“We will continue to find and arrest these subjects leaving these items in our parks.”
Martin has since posted bond and been released from the Gulf County Detention Center.
The Port St. Joe Police Department continues to work an ongoing investigation with the Florida Department of Corrections from Gulf Correctional Institution into a surge of contraband being brought into the prison.
“Since the closing of Work Camps and the integration of work camp inmates with the worst of the worst at the Main Unit at Gulf CI, we have been battling with conspirators who drop bombs, or packages, for inmates to smuggle into the prison,” the police department said. “These packages contain methamphetamine, synthetic marjuana, fentanyl, cocaine, marijuana and pounds of tobacco.”
“These items, worth just hundreds of dollars in our world, are worth tens of thousands in prison. (Those making drops) leave these packages in areas accessible to children and anyone to stumble across.”
PSJPD asks that anyone who can provide information about contraband drops or who thinks they might have discovered a drop within city limits call their non-emergency number at 850-227-1115 option 4.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.