Pribram, Central Bohemia, June 15 (CTK) – The Czech police have accused 22 people, including 12 prisoners, of smuggling drugs to the Bytiz prison near Pribram within the third and so far biggest raid on the facility this year, local police spokeswoman Monika Schindlova told CTK on Thursday.
The suspects face up to ten years behind bars if convicted, she added.
The police accused 17 and 21 people after the previous two raids in February and April.
The last raid took place on Tuesday when the police in cooperation with the Prison Service detained 22 people aged from 21 to 63. Along with the prisoners, their relatives and friends face charges, including five women.
According to the police, they were smuggling medicines, pervitin (methamphetamine) and marijuana to the prison.
The police seized a drug lab, medicines, hemp and syringes during five house searches, mainly in the vicinity of Pribram.
The five main organisers, all of them prisoners, gave tasks to the other members of the group who obtained narcotics illegally. They passed them on to the inmates at their workplace outside the prison. The prisoners smuggled the drugs, for instance, in body cavities, to the facility.
“They had the drugs for personal use or distributed them among other prisoners. They had a financial profit from their sale or exchanged them for coffee and tobacco,” Schindlova said.
The prison employees also uncovered a postal consignment with some 100 tranquillisers.
In the past, the guards found drugs in the Bytiz prison hidden in candy bags, a pen, underwear, meat products, a paper card, washing powder boxes, toothpaste tubes, a skin cream and biscuits.
A court once dealt with the case of people smuggling drugs to the prison during visiting hours and throwing them in taped socks over the prison fence.
