Evening Standard/London

A cunning criminal gang managed to conduct a £30mn drug-smuggling operation from their prison cells using laptops supplied by the ministry of justice, according to reports.
The inmates at Wandsworth Prison even paid a freelancer “fixer” more than £1mn to get himself convicted so he could join them and co-ordinate the plot - which involved shipping a ton of heroin and ketamine into Britain, The Independent newspaper has claimed.
The six-strong group came together at the south-west London prison, where they used computers supplied by the authorities under a taxpayer-funded scheme to help them prepare their cases, the report said.
The security features were disabled by another member of the gang - an east European hacker - using a coded memory stick smuggled into the jail by one of the plotter’s girlfriends.
The gang used the computers to communicate with overseas contacts to place the drugs on shipping containers of legitimate operators travelling from south Asia bound for Britain, the report added. Nearly a quarter of the laptops handed to convicts at Wandsworth Prison between 2012 and 2013 – when the operation reportedly took place –  were stolen or tampered with.
The shocking figures were obtained by the newspaper using the Freedom of Information Act, and expose the extend of the facility’s “chaotic regime”, according to insiders.
A prison service spokesman said: “Prisons are required to provide secure laptops to a minority of offenders facing trial so they can view legal material relating to their case.
“The computers do not enable prisoners to access any other part of the National Offender Management Service system and Internet access is disabled. We will always take action against those attempting to break the rules and offenders face prosecution if they use equipment inappropriately.”
It is understood that only those considered to have legal material too complex or bulky to view on paper have access to these laptops and new, more secure laptops are now starting to be supplied to some prisoners.