According to police, a man was detained over the weekend in Sweden on suspicion of flying a drone above the palace of the country’s monarch and queen. The event occurred when Sweden was facing a surge in recorded drones flying over sensitive locations.
Swedish police would not confirm the guy’s nationality, which tabloid Aftonbladet reported as a Russian man in his 40s seized near Drottningholm Castle at 1 p.m. (1200 GMT) on Sunday.
“We just confirm that it was a man who was arrested yesterday,” police spokesman Ola Osterling said.
The detention comes two weeks after multiple flights of unidentifiable drones over nuclear power stations in various areas of Sweden.
A “military drone” was observed flying above the Swedish parliament, government buildings, and the royal palace in central Stockholm in mid-January.
These episodes occurred when armoured vehicles and hundreds of armed troops were stationed in the streets of Visby, a port city on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland, in an unprecedented response to heightened “Russian activity” in the vicinity.
However, authorities informed the daily Dagens Nyheter that no traces of foreign activity had been uncovered in the 200 episodes of suspicious drone flying.
