The head of a British prison officials' group is warning that a new generation of agricultural drones could be used to airlift inmates out of prisons.

Tom Wheatley, president of the U.K.-based Prison Governors Association, said the drones can lift up to 220 pounds, 33 pounds more than the average British man, The Times of London reported Wednesday. Wheatley, a former prison governor in Britain, warned an escape attempt could happen "any day now."

"We incarcerate people who still have access to enormous amounts of money," Wheatley said. "If you're in prison with nothing to lose and you want to try and find a way to get out, that must be one of the ways you're thinking of doing it.

"Logistically, the threat is all there now. It could be any day from now because the technology exists, [220-pound] payload drones exist. It's a question of how you would get hold of one — but I very much doubt it is beyond the wit and the will of people who are prepared to break the law."

Drones are already used to bring drugs, phones and other contraband into prisons by carrying packages over walls and dropping them into yards, or even flying through cell windows, the Times reported. One expert told the newspaper that prisoners now use drones much like food delivery services to order drugs.

More than 1,700 drone sightings were recorded at prisons in England and Wales between April 2024 and May 2025, according to the Times, an increase of 43%.

The Times focused on the Agras T100 drone made by DJI, a company linked to the Chinese Communist Party whose new drone models face U.S. regulatory restrictions over cybersecurity concerns.

The Agras T100, designed for agricultural use, can be broken down for easy transport and reassembled, features ultra-fast charging, and can be purchased online for roughly $27,000. Wheatley said organized criminal gangs could buy the drone, or similar technology, to airlift prisoners out of jails.

Charlie Taylor, Britain's chief inspector of prisons, told the Times that ministers have been "too slow" to react to the growing threat posed by drones, particularly when they are used to deliver drugs and other contraband. He said prisons are now seeing a wider variety of contraband being flown in, from illegal drugs to lifestyle medications.

"The effect of drones is really a new paradigm when it comes to prisons, because of the ability of organized crime gangs to get very large quantities of contraband in," he said. "We're talking about a range of drugs — spice, which has been the drug of choice in the last few years, but now we're seeing great bales of cannabis, ketamine, cocaine [and] heroin. And then we're also seeing more boutique drugs such as anabolic steroids for bodybuilding.

"Ozempic has come into some jails. Minoxidil for hair loss. What that shows is how easy it is for organized crime because you're going to make a lot more money out of a small amount of spice than you are at a bigger volume of drugs like cannabis. Actually, they can do a bit of everything."

The problem is not limited to Britain. Earlier this month, a drone dropped a bag containing steak, crab legs, cigarettes, marijuana and Old Bay spice blend into Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, South Carolina, The Post and Courier of Charleston reported.

"We have drone flights every night, and we are under attack by drones all the time," Chrysti Shain, spokeswoman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections, told the newspaper.

The Post and Courier reported that drone drops of illicit items have plagued state prisons for years.

In 2017, a drone was used to deliver wire cutters to an inmate, enabling an escape. Since then, state prisons have developed an array of countermeasures, including body scanners at prison entrances and 50-foot-tall nets around prison walls, similar to those used at golf driving ranges.

While the nets have stopped people from throwing footballs filled with drugs into prison yards, some drone operators simply fly their aircraft over them.

Many state prisons now use technology that alerts staff to incoming drones and provides a flight map of the aircraft. An incoming drone triggers an announcement over a loudspeaker and a request to local law enforcement to locate the operator outside the prison's walls, Shain said.

"Technology improves all the time," she said. "It's an ever-present fight to keep contraband out."