Prison brew known as hooch, makeshift weapons, mobile phones, drugs and tobacco are among items seized in the largest crackdown on contraband in NSW Prisons.
Operation Purge targeted each of the state's 36 prisons over an 11-week period and came after a video filmed by a Parklea prisoner was uploaded to YouTube showing him holding a knife and the drug ice.
The prisoner had claimed prison guards were smuggling in contraband.
Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin said Operation Purge had left the prison system safer and said it could be repeated in the near future.
"We're going to remain relentless in our pursuit of contraband getting into the prisons," he said.
"It is a challenge, it continues to be one where we are seeing more sophisticated ways of stuff making its way into the centres, but we are also getting far more sophisticated in our response to it."
Drone wars in prison grounds
Just last week, staff at Goulburn jail discovered a broken drone, tobacco and a mobile phone on the roof of a prison building.
And a drone was captured dropping a package into an exercise yard at Lithgow Prison in October.
Corrective Services Assistant Commissioner Mark Wilson said drones were an emerging threat for prisons.
He said Corrective Services NSW was investigating a range of options to stop drones dropping contraband into prisons, such as radar detection and jamming devices, or even something as simple as installing mesh across outdoor exercise yards.
"Any technical solution will likely be very expensive," he said.
"So we will make sure any technology we select represents value for money for taxpayers and provides the most effective solution possible to stop drones.
"Anybody who thinks … that there is absolutely zero defence against drones at the moment would be absolutely wrong.
"Don't assume that because you can fly a drone into a prison that any contraband attached to it will find its intended target — the likelihood of that is quite low."
NSW Minister for Corrections David Elliott was pleased with the success of Operation Purge.
"More than 8,000 inmates have been searched," he said.
"More than 5,000 cells have been searched and now we look to 105 inmates who potentially face charges which, if proven, would result in a two-year extension on their prison sentence."
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