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Tokyo police will net naughty drones with spec-ops quadcopters

Sick and tired of pesky drones? Perhaps a trip to Japan is in order.

Tokyo police have revealed plans to tackle unlawful drone flights with their own fleet of quadcopters.

The force will soon launch a drone squad that can locate unmanned aerial vehicles, and then capture them with a built-in net.

The first drone in the fleet will be launched in mid-December, and will defend high-profile locations like the Imperial Palace and the prime minister’s office.

Terrorist attacks using drones carrying explosives are a possibility,” a senior member of the police department’s Security Bureau was reported as saying.

He continued: “We hope to defend the nation’s functions with the worst-case scenario in mind.”

In Japan, it’s currently illegal to fly drones near certain locations, like airports or power plants.

It’s also against the law to fly a drone above a height of 150m.

What’s more, both Tokyo and Osaka forbid the use of drones in parks, as noted by the BBC.

droneA police drone nets local criminal scum

Related: DJI Phantom 3 Professional drone review

“The Metropolitan Police Department has been considering ways to use drones to capture other drones since an unmanned aerial machine carrying radioactive soil from Fukushima Prefecture was found on the roof of the prime minister’s office in April,” reads a report by news site Asahi.

It continues: “After some trial and error, police concluded that a net would allow them to easily catch drones with little worry about them falling and causing injuries on the ground.”

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