Prisoner Ran Drug Ring From Jail

[Dragonfan]

Brisbane Times

 

4 December, 2008

 

Inmates allegedly used a plastic weight attached to dental floss to transfer a contraband mobile phone to a convicted murderer accused of using it to run a $250,000-a-week drug trafficking enterprise.

 

Seven people have been arrested in two states after analysis of more than 19,000 phone conversations - originating from within the Lithgow maximum security prison in NSW and conducted in Arabic - allegedly revealed their highly organised criminal activities. A further five friends and relatives of the prisoner are being investigated over the transfer of about $1.5 million worth of cocaine, ice and cannabis from NSW to Victoria in a six week period, NSW police allege.

 

The notorious prisoner, whom the Department of Corrective Services declined to name, allegedly made an average of 460 calls a day between May 1 and June 11 this year. The man, who is serving a 21-year sentence for murdering a man, is suing Corrective Services Commissioner Ron Woodham for being placed in isolation after allegedly hatching a plot to escape another top security prison early last year.

 

"I've got a message for this particular individual - if he thinks he has been isolated before and complained about it, wait till he sees what he's got tomorrow," Mr Woodham told Macquarie Radio on Thursday.

 

Four men will face Burwood Local Court and a fifth man will face Bankstown Local Court on Thursday afternoon, police said. No details of the charges they would face were available. Police earlier said the prisoner, the alleged ringleader, was expected to be charged with at least 15 serious drug and criminal group offences.

 

State Crime Command detectives began Strike Force Skelton in April this year when they became aware the inmate allegedly had access to a smuggled mobile phone in his prison cell. Corrective Services technical support officer Matt Damaso said the phone was wrapped in paper and attached to a line, possibly made from dental floss. The weight was then slid across the floor between the cells, where the second prisoner grabbed it, and reeled in the attached phone.

 

"Phones can fit under doors, there is a three centimetre gap, the phone was moved from one cell to another," Mr Damaso said. The process was caught on video, tipping off the prison officers. Police said the vast majority of intercepted calls involved discussions of highly organised criminal activities.

 

© 2008 AAP