Clamp down on ‘drug-smuggling drones’ continues, Barlinnie governor says

Scotland’s biggest prison continues to “battle” the drone-powered drug-smuggling crisis, Michael Stoney has said.

In an interview with the Glasgow Times, Barlinnie’s governor said he hopes the revamp of the Glasgow prison will help tackle the use of technology to smuggle drugs.

Stoney said: “Hopefully, as technology advances, our tactics in preventing drugs entering the prison keep getting better.

“Prisoners are very creative, so they'll figure out new ways to do it and they'll go to extreme lengths to do it as well.”

He continued: “Our job is to win as many battles as we can.

“Are we getting better? Well, we have had lots of wins recently, lots of score draws, and lots of losses. 

“Drones are now our latest scourge and the battle against drones continues. We look at different and new ways on how we can combat that.

“And we'll get to a point where we get a good solution. Something else may come along.”

South of the border, drones delivering drugs have seen a rapid increase. A freedom of information request by the Guardian found there were almost 1300 incidents at prisons in England and Wales from January to October 2024, marking a tenfold increase since 2020.

In response to the figures, Labour MP Andy Slaughter, who chairs the Commons justice committee, called for more money to tackle the crisis. He said: “It’s particularly galling that organised crime and whoever is operating the drones are effectively steps ahead… of the people who are supposed to be keeping prisons secure.”

And earlier this year England's chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, said drones dropping weapons and drugs into high security prisons had become a “threat to national security”.  

Last month, Mahamood Diallo Blin, 26 was sentenced to six years and 11 months imprisonment for being involved in operations which tried to use drones to fly in class A drugs, phones and tobacco to the HMP Pentonville in London.