Published Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Cell signal cannot be blocked in jails due to covid-19, authorities say

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The covid-19 pandemic that keeps the country under social isolation is the cause of the delay of blocking cell phone signals in jails, announced the Ministry of Justice on Monday.

According to the ministry, the international technicians who have to certify the system to block cell phone signals, were unable to travel to Costa Rica because international passenger flights are also suspended in their countries.

"Last week, representatives of the telephone operators met with the Communications Superintendency, SUTEL, to state that they will be no longer available from meeting the deadline provided by law," said the ministry in its statement. "Now they are waiting for the analysis and resolution that the Superintendency will take."

The operators of the telephone service had already hired the companies in charge of installing the cell phone blocker signal. System tests will start when the health alert by covid-19 end, said the ministry.

"The telephone companies have worked together since the enactment of the law," said Fiorella Salazar Rojas, minister of Justice. "They made reception of offer bids and the analyzes to provide this service in the country, following international standards."

According to Salazar, some tests were carried out on equipment and technology that already yielded positive results. The hired firms are already installed in Costa Rica. "The problem is that the people who have to come to certify the final tests and the operation of the technology have not been able to travel due to the restrictions for international travel," she said.

When international travel restrictions are lifted, the implementation of the system to block the cellular signal in prisons will be applied. The system will be installed in each prison gradually, the ministry said.

People living near prisons are not expected to be affected by this blockade, because the system recognizes phone numbers outside the prison's perimeters, allowing calls made outside the prison with no problems, said authorities.

Scams made by prisoners calling their victims from jails with the use of cell phones has been constantly reported to authorities. Due to that, the deputies of the Legislative Assembly approved in 2019 the installation of systems to block the outgoing calls from prisons made by cell phones.

Last year, the ministry reported that 2,412 various types of electronic equipment, including cell phones had been confiscated from all of the prisons in the country. Of these, the majority are from La Reforma jail in Alajuela Province.

During 2018, there were 2,946 cell phones confiscated within prisons.

According to police statistics, 15,341 cell phones have been confiscated in prisoner cells from 2015 to 2019.

The police ask people to stay alert and report scams. The best way to avoid a scam is to never give bank account data or access codes to computer equipment by phone, according to police.


As was previously reported in August 2019, a video was filmed showing several prisoners making calls, posing as bank officials to defraud victims. In the video, a group of prisoners who were in the La Reforma jail use cell phones to call people and scam them.

The Penitentiary Police identified all the people who appear in the video and the person who made the recording. Those prisoners are serving time for convictions such as homicide, theft, rape, and sale of drugs.

"Because some of them were transferred to other prisons, the authorities estimate that the video was filmed months ago," said the ministry in its statement.

The video that shows several prisoners making calls to third parties can be seen on the Programa Horizontes Facebook page.

April 2020 is the deadline for telecommunication service operators to implement the technological solutions necessary to block the cellular signal in the country's penal centers.

Technicians from the ministry made the first inspection to start blocking cellular signals in jails.

Law No. 9597 for the blocking of cellular signals inside the prisons was approved in August 2019. The goal is to block calling scams that the prisoners run from the jails.

Network operators and telecommunication service providers must adopt and apply the necessary technological solutions to blocking cell phone signals inside the jails, according to a government ruling in 2019.

Prisoners can continue to communicate with families, friends or lawyers through the authorized and monitored public phones available in the jail, officials noted.


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