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19th May 2025
04:20pm BST
Drug traffickers and radical Islamists sentenced to prison time in France will have an exotic change of scenery in the near future.
Whilst visiting the overseas territory of French Guiana, the nation's justice minister Gérald Darmanin informed Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) that a £337m high-security facility will be constructed deep in the Amazon rainforest, with hopes of housing inmates by 2028.
This brand-new prison - situated in the region of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni - targets organised crime "at all levels" of the drug supply chain.
"I have decided to establish the third maximum security prison in France in Guyana. 60 places, an extremely strict prison regime and a single objective: to put the most dangerous drug traffickers out of action," Darmanin told the paper.
According to the minister, this 500-capacity jungle jail is going to be used to detain drug lords "at the beginning" of their trial, serving as a "lasting means of removing the heads of the drug trafficking networks" across mainland France.
Distanced 7,000km away from their criminal connections, they "will no longer be able" to communicate with each other.
France's law enforcement has struggled to control an outbreak of mobile phones inside its prison system for years, with tens of thousands reportedly in circulation.
This comes after a Doncaster-based prison officer was put behind bars for 'sneaking into a cupboard' with a male inmate she was 'in love with'.
Morgan Farr Varney began the relationship while working at HMP Lindholme, but when her colleagues grew suspicious, a CCTV review caught her in the act.
The officer in charge of the case, DC Scott Jarvis, stressed the seriousness of Varney's conduct: "We take any reports of improper relationships between prison staff and inmates incredibly seriously and conduct thorough investigations to ensure those who are guilty of these offences are brought to justice.
"These types of relationships are thankfully rare, but when they do happen, they threaten to undermine the reputation of the prison service and other hard-working prison officers who abide by the rules and regulations attached to the job."
She received a 10-month sentence.
