Thieves broke into a prison to steal cigarettes worth £8,000, climbing a fence and evading officers to swipe the cases of tobacco from a workshop in the jail, near Preston.
Dozens of inmates work in the DHL workshop at Kirkham Prison, a Category D open jail, which is used by the courier firm to store supplies for other units.
'Normally the inmates can’t wait to get OUT of here... so having the opposite happen has caused much mirth,' a source told The Mirror of the heist.
'One theory is it was an inside job. At night security is pretty non-existent. There are not enough prison *officers to check the whole *perimeter.'
Staff at the jail in Lancashire are now examining CCTV footage in an effort to identify the ciggie-stealing culprits.
The theft follows a similar incident earlier this year when burglars in Derbyshire broke into Sudbury Prison and made off with £1,000 of tools from a workshop.
One prisoner described the theft - which included hoses and a trolley - as 'hilarious', while another told The Derby Telegraph: 'How can they be expected to keep the prisoners in if they can't keep the burglars out?'
