About 200 prison staff and gendarmes searched the centre pénitentiaire de Baie-Mahault, the prison at Baie-Mahault in Guadeloupe, on Friday 22 May 2026, a week after a detainee was wounded with a bladed weapon inside the prison on 15 May.[1][2] The operation mobilised 110 prison administration staff, including specialist intervention teams from the Basse-Terre remand centre and the Ducos prison in Martinique.[1] The gendarmerie committed 90 personnel, among them a mobile gendarmerie squadron, 15 departmental gendarmes from the Baie-Mahault brigade, units of the Pointe-à-Pitre company and a dog team.[3]

Officers searched 40 cells and checked 153 detainees.[3][2] They seized 1.2 kg of cannabis herb and 56 grams of cannabis resin, which total about 1.26 kg of cannabis.[3][2] France-Antilles listed the cannabis as 1.2 kg of herb plus 56 g of resin.[4] The search also turned up 21 grams of cocaine, recorded separately and left out of the cannabis figures.[1][2] Officers also seized 75 mobile phones, a flick knife, a ceramic knife, 20 handmade spike weapons and four pairs of scissors.[3]

France-Antilles said the prison administration ordered the exceptional search after the 15 May stabbing to dismantle networks and recover prohibited objects.[4] The search ran under the overseas prison services directorate, in coordination with that directorate, with the deputy prosecutor of the Pointe-à-Pitre prosecutor’s office present.[1] France-Antilles said the deputy prosecutor and the prefect’s chief of staff supervised the operation.[4] France-Antilles put the prison’s population at about 500 detainees, above its official capacity, and said the Pointe-à-Pitre and Basse-Terre prosecutors had been informed.[4] The regional prison service direction said operations of this kind would be repeated without warning to deter detainees from keeping prohibited objects.[4]