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French investigators have uncovered a global trade in miniature phones smuggled into prisons to coordinate serious crimes—including drug trafficking, money laundering and homicide—prompting Eurojust to alert law enforcement agencies across Europe and beyond to pay attention to such phones.
The discovery followed a major operation, codenamed “Prison Break,” during which French authorities searched nearly 500 cells across 66 prisons on Tuesday, according to Eurojust.
They seized thousands of ultra-compact mobile phones—nicknamed “thumb phones” or “suppositories” in prison slang—some of which had been smuggled in by couriers who concealed them in their rectum during inmate visits, according to French media reports.
The phones—roughly the size of a lighter and made mostly of plastic—contain few metal components and feature settings that help them evade detection by prison security scanners.
Authorities estimate that around 5,000 of the China-made devices have entered French prisons.
Investigators traced the phones to global online marketplaces, including a reseller website called Oportik, which has since been taken offline. After identifying the international scope of the trafficking, France’s anti-organized crime unit, JUNALCO, shared its findings with Eurojust.
The EU agency then distributed the technical details of the devices to its network of National Desks and Liaison Prosecutors, enabling other countries to investigate whether the phones are being used in their own prison systems.
