An inmate was stopped by the Penitentiary Police at Poggioreale prison while he was in the showers of a ward, where he had just retrieved a package delivered by a drone. After making the delivery, the drone managed to escape before officers could intercept it.
Inside the bag, officers found three latest-generation smartphones and two blocks of narcotics, weighing a total of 150 grams. The material, ready to be distributed among the other inmates, was seized in its entirety.
The union raises the alarm: "Technological warfare in prisons"
The incident sparked a reaction from the USPP union. President Giuseppe Moretti and secretary Ciro Auricchio, while expressing satisfaction with "the brilliant operation that demonstrates the professionalism of the Poggioreale prison police," painted a worrying picture of the situation in Italian prisons.
"A real daily technological war is underway," the two union representatives declare, underlining how the use of drones by organized crime has marked "a turning point" in the introduction of drugs and phones behind bars, with deliveries "increasingly precise and effective, supported by hi-tech."
The USPP therefore urgently requests that the prison police be equipped with adequate tools to address the threat: anti-drone systems and jammers, or signal inhibitors, capable of neutralizing aircraft before they reach their target. "At Poggioreale," Moretti and Auricchio conclude, "despite a staffing deficit of approximately 150, the prison police are only able to maintain order and internal security with great sacrifice."
This appeal reiterates the issue of resources allocated to prison security in a context where technology has now become the preferred weapon of crime, even beyond the prison gates.
It seems very serious to me, even if a little surreal. In Poggioreale, they stopped an inmate in the showers of a ward, but the drone ran away. The bag contained three smartphones and drugs. The officers seized it, but the prison police don't have enough men and jamming equipment, otherwise these things will continue to happen. The USPP union says they need jammers and more resources.