JEDDAH, 30 June 2003 — Police have identified a gang smuggling drugs into Jeddah’s public prison, Al-Madinah reported.
The culprits were a Sudanese prisoner, jailed for five years for stealing, and a regular woman visitor, the paper said.
The woman had supplied the man with a cell phone, which the man rented out to fellow inmates at SR5 a minute, thus building up capital for the drug operation.
The paper said the woman then supplied him first with drug pills and later with marijuana, which he sold for five times the normal market price.
During a routine inspection, police found a huge quantity of drugs in his room ready for distribution.
The man confessed under interrogation and implicated his accomplice. However, the woman, who happened to be visiting the prison at the time, escaped.
Sources told Al-Madinah there was a growing drug problem in the Kingdom’s prisons.
Dr. Ali-Al-Harthi, the director general of prisons, told the newspaper his department was working hard to solve the problem, but admitted that some prisoners nonetheless succeeded in smuggling drugs into the institutions.
