Niall Donald

Drones are being used to smuggle drugs, weapons and mobile phones into a Dublin jail on an almost daily basis.

Organised crime groups are using skilled drone pilots to drop contraband items into Wheatfield Prison.

But today I'm speaking to Crime World correspondent Ken Foy, who went inside the jail to see how prison officials are fighting back.

I'm Niall Donald and this is Crime World, a podcast from crimeworld.com.

So we've just seen a video there of a group of prisoners in Wheatfield Prison, one of Ireland's biggest prisons, making a human pyramid to try and get drugs that have been captured in netting.

It's a huge problem, isn't it?

And it's a problem that the Irish Prison Service are determined to address.

So you're talking, you know, we're like more than halfway through the year.

So it's nearly one a day, is it?

Or just slightly less than that?

So drugs being smuggled into prison is an old story, obviously.

The traditional ways were probably still in operation as well.

But the oldest way was people getting temporary release for a day and being smuggling the drugs back in on their property.

on their person or you know somebody getting a visit from their mother or girlfriend and they used to then they used to kiss the boyfriend and pass the drugs by mouth so there was all these traditional ways but obviously drones

have absolutely taken over.

And that's the last couple of years.

I mean, the advantage of them is, of course, that, you know, you can do it without being caught, even if the drugs, you know, are seized.

But it was a fascinating bit you had in your story that's on crimeworld.com about how they're colour coordinated.

And obviously then everybody, so if they're marked black, you know, that goes to this particular gang or this particular grouping.

Yeah, because prisons obviously can be violent places and there can be violence over very little.