Drug trafficking and drone telephones at the Aix-en-Provence prison center

The sky over the Aix-en-Provence penitentiary center has become a real aircraft hub. This is evidenced by the numerous arrests of drone operators who intervene almost daily near the prison, known for housing numerous drug traffickers from the Marseille region.

These inmates generally manage to maintain contact with the outside world, taking advantage of the bandwidth that manages to penetrate the prison wall and the cell phones that are skillfully slipped to them in detention or through complicity. “The first cases of malicious drone flights near penitentiary establishments were noted in 2017, to deliver means of communication or narcotics,” confirms a strategic analysis note from the Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast) published last January and which we were able to consult.

“These deliveries fuel the organization of trafficking in prisons, for the benefit of prisoners, for their consumption or in favor of criminals continuing their activities in detention,” continues Ofast, explaining that this technology, “in the process of expanding,” represents “a growing security challenge for law enforcement” as well as for sensitive sites.

“Service providers”

“There are some every evening around Aix-Luynes,” confirms a source close to the matter. Last week, no fewer than six people suspected of flying drones near the prison were arrested by the national police. According to our information, which confirms that of La Provence, two minors were part of the dragnet.

The latter were arrested on September 11 around midnight while trying to flee the outskirts of the prison in a vehicle. Inside, two other suspects as well as an aircraft which had just flown over one of the prison centers. The quartet was immediately taken into custody. Following this measure, the two minors were finally released on the grounds that the offense was insufficiently characterized, but the two adults had to be referred.

The next day, two other people suspected of flying a drone over the prison were also arrested as they tried to flee the scene by car. The drone was seized and the suspects were taken into custody. “At the beginning of October 2025, 2,121 successful deliveries had already been recorded (since the start of the year, Editor’s note)”, add the Ofast investigators in their summary note. “When drones and their remote pilots are detected, only the “service providers” are generally arrested, the identification of the sponsor being more difficult,” add the police.