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The Hamptons Police revealed this week that over the summer they had initiated a new crime surveillance program in Sag Harbor involving miniature airborne cameras and microphones mounted on small flying drones resembling flies, bees, mosquitoes and other bugs.

The cameras were operated from an underground bunker near Sag Harbor, where a team of 125 officers controlled the motions of the drones and monitored the movements and activities of people on Sag Harbor streets and in area parks, screening their actions on large video monitors inside the bunker.

“The Hamptons Police did purchase several hundred ultra nano drones,” Hamptons Police spokesman Larry Hirsch announced on Thursday. “These sophisticated law enforcement tools were designed to resemble insects and were equipped with very small cameras and listening devices. This was a pilot program to test the efficacy of the system, and we’re happy to say that we consider the program a tremendous success.”

According to Hirsch, the Hamptons Police plan to roll the system out across the entire South Fork next summer.

“This way we will have a complete picture of the comings and goings of suspicious characters and so-called ‘persons of interest’ on a continuous basis,” Hirsch said.

He was unable to say, however, whether the deployment of the ultra nano drones and the concomitant expenditure of resources on equipment and manpower had led to more arrests or an increase in public safety.

“Not everything can be measured by numbers, or dollars and cents” Hirsch remarked testily when questioned about statistics. “The Hamptons Police will stop at nothing to protect the public. We would ask, however, that people think twice before swatting at flies around here. These ultra nano drones don’t come cheap.”

Read more tales from the Hamptons Police Blotter