Crime gangs 'hiring expert drone pilots and using kids' to smuggle drugs into prisons

Gangs are recruiting expert drone pilots to help smuggle huge quantities of drugs into prisons across Greater Manchester where cocaine and spice can trade for five times the normal market value and generate huge profits for criminals, a senior police officer has revealed.

Drones carrying payloads weighing as much as seven kilos are transporting drugs, mobile phones, tobacco and even items which aren't prohibited inside prisons such as condiments and sauces into jails, Superintendent Andy Buckthorpe told the Manchester Evening News as GMP launched a major new operation to tackle crime gangs operating behind bars. Police also revealed children as young as 14 are being exploited to smuggle contraband into jails.

Traffic cops armed with ANPR cameras, police sniffer dogs and even a police drone were used as part of an operation yesterday (Wednesday) outside four Greater Manchester prisons: Strangeways in Manchester city centre, HMP Forest Bank in Salford, HMP Buckley Hall in Rochdale and HMP Hindley in Wigan.

READ MORE: 'There are more drugs in there than out here... the place is on its a**e'

GMP arrested a number of suspects in the latest phase of its operation to tackle crime behind bars which has been running for the last six months but its existence was only confirmed during the huge day of action outside the four prisons in Greater Manchester this week.

Drugs are coming into prisons via corrupt jail staff, via prison visits from families of inmates and by packets being thrown over prison walls, but over the last seven years drones have increasingly been used as technology has improved, said Supt Buckthorpe.

Technology exists to block signals being sent to drone pilots but this wasn't being used because of the risk of a crash causing injury to innocent passers-by, the officer confirmed.

Supt Buckthorpe, speaking as the operation launched outside the walls of HMP Forest Bank, said: "It takes a certain skill to fly these drones. If you show yourself as someone who is proficient, I would suggest there's probably a demand for that type of individual."

He confirmed, rather than flying the drones themselves, criminal gangs were recruiting expert drone pilots to fly contraband into jails up and down the country. "Our aim is to try and stop the organised crime threat in our four Greater Manchester prisons and to stop the drugs getting into our prison estate. That's what's causing the damage and the violence inside jails," he said.

The officer accepted corrupt prison staff smuggling contraband was part of the problem, saying: "We know it certainly happens. Everybody working within prisons is potentially at risk of corruption."

As part of it's day of action, GMP had officers inside the four prisons to assist prison staff to manage visits from inmates' families, which is another way contraband is brought into jails. HMP Forest Bank manages 600 visitors every day.

Asked if prisons did enough to prevent drugs coming in, Supt Bickthorpe said: "It's difficult to say. I think it's fair to say they are really alive to it and really aware of it."

The operation also saw police helping to search staff going into Strangeways jail, including searches of their vehicles when they arrived at work. A police drone was also used to scan the area.

Assistant Chief Constable John Webster, of GMP, said families were using children to smuggle contraband into prisons. He told the Manchester Evening News: "Anybody who smuggles contraband - and we are talking drugs here - into prison is extraordinarily foolish and ill-advised." He described as 'diabolical' that children aged from 14 were subjected to such 'exploitation'.

Some inmates have managed to run huge drugs supply rackets from behind bars. One of them, Omar Din, 36, facilitated the sale of 'large quantities of drugs with an established criminal network on the outside'. Working from his cell at HMP Risley, he was said to have 'trusted associates who he directed to do the dirty work' - together with links to Holland, Hungary, Morocco, and Albania.

In 2021, Din was convicted of two conspiracies to supply class A drugs, namely cocaine and heroin. He was sentenced to seven years and three months in jail after going on the run for six years to evade police, who finally caught up with him and arrested him as he travelled from Istanbul in Turkey to Sweden.

Two years after he was jailed his prison cell at HMP Risley in Warrington was searched, with an iPhone and a charger cable found in a foam exercise roller under his bed. Greater Manchester Police said it 'soon became clear' the phone was being used to supply drugs and was controlled by Din. He was jailed for a further 20 years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply drugs.

At a police briefing ahead of the launch of Wednesday's operation, officers were told that HMP Forest Bank had seen a 'significant number' of smuggling offences in the past year and that they were fuelling attacks on staff.

In the five months to September, police had recorded more than 350 crimes at HMP Forest Bank, including violence and public order offences, officers who had gathered for the op were told. More than 60 offences of conveyance – smuggling items into prison – had been recorded in the past year, police were told.

Drones are believed to be the favoured method to transport banned items into jails but officers said friends, relatives and even children have been known to hand over contraband on social visits. One officer said a £50 bag of cannabis would sell for 'hundreds of pounds' in prison, adding: “People get slashed all the time for it”.