A former correctional officer at the Wyatt Detention Center admitted on Monday that he smuggled about 200 Suboxone strips into the facility through a scheme involving a inmate and another person outside the building.
Kaii Almeida-Falcones, 30, of Smithfield, pleaded guilty to a charge of providing contraband to an inmate during a federal court hearing in Providence on Monday. He is scheduled to be sentenced on September 12.
The scheme began in mid-February 2021, prosecutors said.
Authorities allege that two inmates at the Wyatt Detention Center communicated with a former detainee and another person outside the prison to arrange to give Suboxone strips to Almeida-Falcones, who smuggled the strips inside the facility through his undergarments, prosecutors said in a statement.
Prosecutors say a strip search of a detainee named Emmanuel Nolasco, 37, revealed a package containing 201 Suboxone strips, five of which were partial strips, all containing the drug Buprenorphine.
An investigation involving the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, and other federal and state law enforcement agencies was credited with helping authorities solve the case.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) assisted a What’sUpNewp journalist with the reporting included in this story.
