PRISONERS are flogging £500 “Netflix” USB sticks in prison to watch box sets and films behind bars, a Sun probe has found.
Inmates at high security jails are said to be unhappy with the choice of live TV channels and are instead buying devices to binge a range of shows and movies.
The USB sticks are advertised on social media sites for prisoners to smuggle in.
One clip, which appears to be posted from inside a prison cell, shows a lag scrolling through the shows available on the stick.
They include gritty Netflix thriller El Chapo, apocalypse drama The Last of Us, and gangster series Top Boy.
The stick is said to cost £500 per cell and is smuggled in by guests or corrupt guards.
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Even US reality series The Kardashians is available on the illicit behind-bars device.
The 50-second video is captioned: “The TV channels the prison give you vs £500 USB stick.” Figures show the black market for illicit technology in UK prisons is booming.
Former prison governor and Reform UK spokeswoman Vanessa Frake said: “Prisoners will make money out of anything, whether it be mobiles, SIM cards and USB sticks.
“These devices are small enough to smuggle in and easy to use.
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“They are also easy to hide from staff once they are inside.
“Some of the cells, especially in high-security prisons, are choc-a-bloc with stuff.
“If you allow cells to become cluttered, they become impossible to search. These prisoners are very ingenious.=
“It’s yet another thing that our prison service is failing in.
“They aren’t stopping drugs, phones or drones and the mind boggles as to how far this will go, and one day we will have a gun or, god forbid, explosives smuggled in.”
Prison Service figures show that some 9,500 digital items, including USB sticks, were seized from cells in the year to March 2026, up from 4,600 in 2023.
More than 12,000 mobile phones and more than 5,300 illicit SIM cards were also caught in the last year.
The Prisons Service was asked to comment.