Dealers get drugs and mobile phones thrown over prison walls

They are raking in tens of thousands of pounds from operations while inside jails. With a captive market, they can charge fellow inmates more for drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine than they can sell them for on the outside. In some cases, heroin is 10 times dearer inside prisons than out on the streets. Dealers are deliberately setting out to get caught for ­relatively minor offences they know will result in a three-month jail term. Having already set up bank accounts, they smuggle mobile phones into the prison. Drug-using inmates then call friends and relatives with the account details so they can make cash deposits into the dealer’s bank.

The dealer is able to use either phone or internet banking via the smuggled mobile to check the money has been deposited. Once it is in his account, a drug drop is arranged. A source released from Hull Prison last week told the Daily Express that dealers boast about making more than £20,000 during three months in jail. The 37-year-old former burglar said: “The dealers are laughing at the prison officers because they say they can make more in just a couple of weeks than they earn in a whole year.

“Most use mobile phones but some are so brazen they even use the prison phones which are recorded. Getting the drugs into jail is no problem. They are thrown over the wall at designated times, again organised via the mobile phones. “If the phones get confiscated, a new one can be delivered in much the same way.” The source said prison visitors also bring in large quantities of drugs, often hiding them in the clothing of young child­ren. A common ploy is to smuggle the drugs inside a baby’s nappy, as these are not checked by the guards.

Because of the high profits to be made, there is also a strong temptation for prison officers to assist in smuggling in drugs. The Government said 64 prison officers were investigated for involvement in the trafficking of drugs last year. No figures were available for how many of these investigations subsequently led to prosecutions. The source has just completed four-year jail term for burglary and has spent much of the past two decades in prison. He has never developed a drug problem and is amazed at the scale of the illicit trade.

He said: “I have been moved between 13 different prisons during this last stretch, all across Britain, and this scam was happening at every prison. It would be so easy to stop but most of the screws can’t be bothered because it would only mean more grief and paperwork for them to do. “A prisoner who is an addict is a lot easier to handle if he has got his fix than if he’s being deprived it. “I reckon about 80 per cent of the prisoners I have come into contact with are addicts. Even if they’re not smack heads when they go inside, there is so much temptation and boredom once they are banged up that most give in.

“Proper policing of jails could stop drugs quite quickly but nobody seems to care and that is allowing dealers to flourish ­within the system.” Tory justice spokesman Nick Herbert reacted with astonishment at the revelations. He said: “These are extraordinary allegations which the Ministry of Justice should investigate without delay. “The idea that criminals might actually want to return to prison to conduct criminal activity offends against the fundamental tenet that jails should be secure.