Blueprints of more than 20 prisons leaked on dark web

Fears that plans could be exploited to smuggle drugs into jails or aid escapes

Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Layouts of more than 20 prisons have been leaked onto the dark web, amid fears they could be exploited to smuggle drugs into jails or aid an escape.
Extra security checks have been deployed at jails across England and Wales after the plans, believed to have been taken from a contractor, were shared online.
Prison chiefs have launched an investigation into the leak of the plans, which include details of security cameras and sensors on perimeter fences. Prison staff have been ordered to increase patrols and perimeter checks until the investigation assesses the risks from the leak.
Prison service sources said the investigation was trying to establish whether it was simply a hack of the plans, which were then posted on the dark web, or if it was masterminded by an organised crime gang to help them deliver drugs and phones into prisons via drones or to facilitate an escape.
“We are unclear about the motivation. It might just be someone who has hacked a contractor and posted it on the dark web,” said one source. “Additional security measures have been put into prisons including extra perimeter checks.”
Prison officials who work at the jails were sent an internal email titled “security alert” to inform them of the security breach earlier this month.
They were told that the breach could affect the security of the jails’ perimeters, internal fences that have security cameras and technology installed within them to alert attempted breaches and raise an alarm.
The memos to staff reported that there had been a data loss that had led to “vulnerabilities” to these security systems. This meant there was a risk that members of the public had been made aware of information that put prisons’ perimeters “at risk”.
This may be from people “attempting to convey items into the establishment/aid an escape”, the email warned. It urged staff to be extra vigilant and alert to any changes in prisoners’ behaviour that may be connected with the security breach.
Staff at prisons affected were told there was no specific intelligence about who was behind the leaks but added: “We must not be complacent to this risk.”
Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and a counter-terrorism expert who reviewed extremism in prisons for the government, said that organised crime groups could use copies of the layouts along with other public information to coordinate drone deliveries of drugs and weapons, and potentially orchestrate an escape.
“If plans of high-security prisons have been leaked, co-ordinating that with open-source material or Google maps could aid an escape after an attack on the exterior of the prison,” he told The Times, which first revealed the leak.
“Much more plausible is using additional data to co-ordinate drone drops. But if you can deliver half a kilo of drugs via a drone then you can deliver weapons, explosives, whatever you want. These places are wide open.”
A senior prisoner service source said security measures had been put in place to make sure every jail was secure. “The plans only show how things are at a certain point. We can change them to make sure security is in the right place,” said the source. “We can move cameras. We are able to mitigate the risks.”
The leak comes amid a surge in drugs being smuggled into prisons via drones. Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, has found up to three quarters of inmates at prisons are now testing positive.
He said organised crime gangs were using the drones to drop heavy payloads of cannabis into prisons via ever more ingenious approaches because of the “enormous” mark-ups that they could make from selling the drugs in jails.
Earlier this month, an inspection report revealed Garth high-security prison near Leyland in Lancashire had become “an airport” because so many drugs were being delivered to its inmates by drones.
At Manchester prison, inmates ripped out the element from their kettle, burned a hole in the perspex windows of their cells so that drones could fly in and deliver drugs, and mobile phones, which are used to coordinate the influx of drugs.
In another jail, HMP Oakwood, in Wolverhampton, the gangs disguised the drug payloads in grass then dropped them via drones onto the prison’s playing fields so that they could not be spotted by officers and could be retrieved by the prisoners.
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email