Orders from stolen phones in UK prisons: Delivery of drugs-weapons by drone in prisons; Gangs extorting money from prisoners’ families

A new crisis of delivering contraband goods through drones is increasing in British prisons. Prisoners are ordering weapons like mobiles, drugs, chargers and knives from inside the jail. Drones are dropping these packets directly on the cell window or in the jail grounds. The judge has described it as delivery like Uber Eats. Shafqat Ullah Mohseni, 29, has been found guilty of more than 140 illegal drone flights. He supplied it to 9 prisons in England between December 2024 and February 2025 and collected about Rs 30 lakh from the families of the prisoners. A record 1,712 incidents of drone sightings were recorded in prisons by March 2025. According to experts, the real number may be higher because drones are often flown at night. Earlier, goods were thrown over the wall for smuggling. Now commercial drones have become the easiest way. Prisoners give orders to outside gangs from secretly kept phones and are often paid by their terrified families. The family is threatened by the gang that if they do not pay for the goods, their relatives in jail will be harmed. To deal with the threat, the British government is studying Russian drone interception technology in Ukraine. Grills are being installed on the windows of jails and nets on buildings. Also, efforts are being made to reach smugglers through digital forensics, fingerprints and metadata. The price of goods inside the jail is up to 10 times. The price of goods in the jail is being recovered up to 5-10 times that of the market. This has increased the pressure of violence, drug addiction and recovery. According to the National Audit Office, drones can deliver large packets accurately, hence the risk of drug addiction in prisons has also increased.



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