Smugglers reveal shock ways they get drugs into Lotus Glen Correctional Centre
Queensland prisoners are convincing newbies, visitors and those on bail to smuggle drugs hidden in their genitals to feed a thriving drug trade, it can now be revealed.
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Queensland prisoners are convincing newbies, visitors and those on bail to smuggle drugs hidden in their genitals to feed a thriving drug trade, it can now be revealed.
It comes as figures from the Department of Corrections show at least one drug bust a week at Lotus Glen Correctional Centre with 69 substance-related contraband items detected and confiscated in the past 12 months.
It’s understood sophisticated criminal consortiums with contacts inside and outside the prison run the drug trade inside the facility 28km south of Mareeba.
A former inmate at Townsville Correctional Centre, who asked to remain anonymous, revealed she smuggled drugs into Lotus Glen for her then boyfriend by placing them into her genitals. Her boyfriend would retrieve them during visits.
“It’s like a game. First to get in without them noticing and then him having to get them out of me,” she said.
The most common drugs available are suboxone (“Subbies” or “Bupe”), used to treat opioid addiction, and crystal methamphetamine associated with causing psychosis and increased levels of violence.
A former Lotus Glen prisoner told the Cairns Post said trade was often fed by newly arrived prisoners.
In a practice known around jails as “suitcasing”, people who are on bail and facing potential imprisonment, on the morning of their court case smuggle drugs deep into their anal cavity where it is undetectable.
Drugs are often bought on mass, and often on tick (dealers are paid later) — knowing that drugs can be sold for often 3-5 times their street value in prison.
A single gram of meth can be bought for as little as $200, and then usually divided and sold as single 10 point units at up to $100 each.
They also said prisoners often get contacts, sometimes their parents or their children, to make envelopes that look like confidential legal letters but are in fact filled with drugs.
In other cases, tennis balls filled with meth, cocaine and syringes have been thrown over the jail wall.
Indigenous leader Sarah Addo, who is involved in the Far North’s Deaths in Custody Watch Group, said she had seen first-hand the impact on prisoners.
“I guess we are supposed to think that people go into jail to be rehabilitated.
“They thought, ‘Oh, yeah, their son would go to jail and come back rehabilitated’.
“I know one family and their son came in ... he came out skinny and withdrawn from ice intake. Ice is everywhere in Lotus.”
The extent of how much money criminals can make has been laid bare in several court cases this year.
Cassandra Lee French, 39, was sentenced in the Cairns District Court in March for drug trafficking at Lotus Glen.
The man giving direction to French operated his own customer base inside the jail which gave him “considerable power and influence”, the court heard.
The court heard that French received a total of $31,299 in her bank account from the illegal scheme. She received three years.
Lotus Glen prisoner and convicted prisoner Bradley David Hill, 47, recently pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful trafficking of suboxone with his son.
The “subby strips”, which go for between $10 and $20 a strip on the street, were sold for around $250 each.
A Queensland Corrective Services spokeswoman said in a statement that corrective services “has a zero-tolerance approach to the introduction of drugs and contraband into correctional centres. Anyone who thinks about bringing contraband into prison will get caught”.
“To further enhance barrier controls low dose X-ray body scanners are being trialled at Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre to crackdown on prison contraband. The trial will be evaluated before being rolled out to other centres.”
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Originally published as Smugglers reveal shock ways they get drugs into Lotus Glen Correctional Centre
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