Jakarta, June 15 -- Indonesia's Ministry of Immigration and Correctional Services announced on Sunday that it has transferred 100 inmates from penitentiaries in North Sumatra to the maximum-security prison island of Nusakambangan in Central Java.

The high-profile inmates were relocated on Saturday, June 14, according to Rika Aprianti, head of the ministry's Sub-Directorate of Cooperation in Correctional Services, in a press statement.

Their transfer is part of the ministry's efforts to eradicate drug trafficking operations that continue to be orchestrated from within North Sumatra prisons, she said.

Aprianti said that contraband cell phones and the circulation of drugs among inmates remain a serious threat to public safety and must be ...