The blitz took place as The Daily Telegraph gained exclusive insight into life at the prison — including grim cells where some of Australia’s worst criminals are locked up.

Notorious inmates previously held at Silverwater include Lindt Café terrorist Man Monis and child killer Kathleen Folbigg.

Elite Corrective Services officers launched the lightning raid to retrieve contraband from the stuffy cells, where bikie slogans and gang motifs compete for wall space with personal items such as calendars scrawled with court appearance dates, a son’s birthday and even messages of hope.

Inmates’ dirty laundry was hanging from bunks as prison officers accompanied by sniffer dogs flipped bunk beds, unscrewed televisions and trawled personal items hunting for drugs, weapons and phones.

Prisoners, some clutching Korans, were handcuffed and marched outside as the operation began.

Among them was an associate of a deadly, high-profile gang. Inmates were led back into their cells and strip searched.

Bug-eyed and pale, one heavily-tattooed inmate confessed to owning a jailhouse shiv — a makeshift knife — a sawn-off syringe and 0.3 grams of a crystalline substance.

Paracetamol and tobacco was seized. A shoe with a hollowed-out compartment was also recovered. But the haul could have been bigger.

A chorus of flushing toilets erupted as 16 burly security staff stormed Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre on Wednesday night.

Inmates were desperate to discard or hide drugs before officers reached their cells.

The cry of “red light” boomed as crooks warned each other the intelligence-led raid was on.

NSW Correctives Services Security Operations Group (SOG) uses urine test results and tips to target inmates.

“It’s hard … you hear the toilets go and pretty much it’s gone,” SOG security manager John Harrison said.

“We’ve got the numbers to get in and grab the targets straight away.”

Crooks’ mates and relatives — including small children — smuggle drugs and phones, despite stringent screening.

Punishments for contraband include 56 days without “buy privileges” to pay for extra rations and the suspension of visiting rights.

The discovery of large amounts of drugs and phones can result in fresh police charges.

“Phones are a big thing for us,” Mr Harrison said.

“Not just the more publicised ones where they’re attempting to run their drug business on the outside.

“They might be in there for domestic violence and they’re getting hold of a mobile phone to then ring their wife.”

Prisons Minister David Elliott said prison contraband was a global problem.

“It’s the scourge of the prison system but I’m confident we have the resources to stay on top of it,” Mr Elliott said. “I will continue these raids as long as I am prisons minister.”

Silverwater Correctional Complex opened in 1970 to cater to the city and state’s hardened criminals.

The prison’s maximum-security MRRC has become the processing centre for would-be criminals across greater Sydney, housing them while prosecutors decide whether to press ahead with their cases or while court cases are being heard.

Hundreds of inmates are transported by truck every day to court hearings across Sydney and back again if they are denied bail.

Silverwater’s list of famous guests is lengthy — among it white collar criminals Rodney Adler, Marcus Einfeld, Eddie Obeid and Rene Rivkin.

In the women’s prison. child killer Kathleen Folbigg was incarcerated, as was Lindy Chamberlain before being famously acquitted.

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