Communication via ‘smartphones’ and chat programs provide simple, fast and effective ways for drug dealing in jails including the high security Klong Prem Central Prison in Bangkok, a recent visit by “Primetime” to Zone 5, the prison’s serious offender unit, revealed.

This zone is popular for drug dealing because it is a “T area”, meaning it is out of reach of devices that scramble phone signals. So, illegal acts are carried out under the nose of prison officials.

Klong Prem officials admit that prison walls can’t stop convicts dealing in drugs, because cell-phones have been smuggled into the prison for years via various methods by drug networks outside the jail. A total of 1,168 mobile phones and 2,381 SIM cards were seized in Klong Prem between 2014 and 2016. Nationwide, over 10,000 phones were seized. One can only imagine the volume and value of drugs brokered behind bars.

Housing the country’s highest number of drug convicts, Klong Prem is a hive of drug activity. “Despite arrests and jailing people, dealers still have [drug] cargoes and network people outside or credit to post orders,” Corrections Department acting chief and deputy permanent secretary of the Justice ministry Kobkiat Kasiwiwat said. Such ‘credit’ – which gives suppliers’ peace of mind over repayments – allows inmates to continue doing deals behind bars, he said.

Although orders can be placed when inmates have visitors, a phone call with a trusted person is the preferred method – hence the relentless smuggling of cell phones into jails. With a huge amount of money at stake, the price for smuggled phones ranged from Bt20,000 to Bt300,000, Kobkiat said.

A favourite method to smuggle phones into prisons includes throwing them over walls, which leads to the setting up of buffer zones and nets over fences. The use of toolboxes to smuggle in phones resulted in officials using X-ray machines while body-scanning devices are also employed.

Every meal box and post parcel is checked, Kobkiat said.

But high-tech tools and strict checks can’t curb this problem if prison workers aid smuggling. From 2013 to 2015, 53 Corrections officials were punished for involvement in phone smuggling while 79 were punished for drug offences. “The department implemented measures to solve the problem including holding the prison warden and those down the chain of command responsible if a phone-smuggling case occurred,” Kobkiat said.

A former inmate, who asked for anonymity, said an inmate must befriend a targeted official. “It is nearly impossible to smuggle anything into prison, if you don’t have a prison official’s aid,” the former inmate said. “If you receive a good response from the official, you can offer something in exchange for a smuggled item.”

To locate smuggled phones in prisons, officials need a lot of experience. The most popular hiding places are pipes (a phone in a sock and a tightly sealed plastic bag is wrapped in fishnet together with stones and dropped in a neatly-cut hole in the water pipe, ready to be hooked out for use).

A toilet is another popular hiding spot (a toilet bowl’s base is removed so a sealed bag containing a phone is hung on the hole with a string). Phones are also hid under floor tiles.

Narcotics suppression officials said although many high-security prisons have signal-scrambling devices, inmates know the devices have to be turned off briefly, so they prepare typed messages and emails in advance, and automatically resend them until they go. Messages have been intercepted – officials noted the use of code words such as “hens”, “eggs” and some fruit to represent illicit drugs.

Kobkiat said getting strict with prison officials and encouraging them to have a sense of duty, along with cell searches and the use of technology, had helped to reduce phone-smuggling cases. “As a senior, I try to talk with officials … including through Line groups to boost their sense of duty and morale.” He said the bad prison officials accounted for less than 20 per cent of the total number.