-Published: Tuesday, November 26, 2019-




By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

In August, the Ministry of Justice had reported 1,918 various types of electronic equipment, such as cell phones, that have been confiscated from all of the prisoners in the country.

This week, an expat surnamed Blount, who lives in Potrero Beach in Guanacaste, has reported being scammed from a fake call made by a prisoner right from the jail.

According to Blount's account, in October 2018, he was scammed by a man who was "actually in jail and I lost a little over $3,000."

When the victim reported the scam to the agents of the Judicial Investigation Organization, they told him other people, had been scammed as well, he said. "There were at least 11 of us in my area at the time. Two lost amounts of $60,000 and $ 130.000. These people are getting rich while sitting in jail," said Blount.

According to Blount, after the electronic theft, the scammers continued with the calls.

"Since this happened last year the same man has called me at least three times. On one of those calls, I got him to talk for a while. I told him I knew he was trying to scam me again. I thought he would hang up, but instead, he told me he was in jail," said Blount in his account.

The authorities recommend that in case of receiving calls from people who pretend to be workers of any public institution, and who also request sensitive data from bank accounts, recipients should not to continue the call and hang up. Then, report the incident to the authorities, they say.

However, according to the victim, communication with the alleged scammer continued for a while.

"I asked why he did this to me and he said he needed the money. The next time he called I told him to lose my number. Then the other day he called again! But this time he called a different cell phone that is in my name. I listened to his pitch for a little bit, got his name again and told him I knew what he was doing and hung up," said the victim. "The last call was on 9 Aug 2019."

According to Blount, the stolen money could not be recovered through the bank. "My Costa Rica bank did not cover my losses. Their excuse was that I assisted this man. That is insane but the bank got away with it, so I feel like I was robbed all over again."

The theft could be achieved because the victim was making the process of installing a program to make electronic invoices. According to the victim, the thief pretended to be a bank employee who was helping him to go through that process.

"Like so many people I was very worried about understanding the new electronic invoicing system when this man got me. It gave him (and fellow prisoners) an easy way to scam me and many others," said Blount.

According to the victim, he did not suspect that he was being scammed, because the thief knew a lot of sensitive information.

"I use to think people who fell for scams were not careful enough and gave out to much information. But I didn't have to give this man information. He already knew a lot about me. Scary thought that a man in jail can get so much information about someone like this. He even used my ID number and other information (date of birth, etc) to convince me he was with the Hacienda," said the victim.

In August social networks carried a video of a group of prisoners who were in the prison La Reforma, in San Rafael in Alajuela, using cell phones to call people and scam them.

According to the ministry statement in about that video, the Penitentiary Police identified all the people who appear in the video; also the person who made the recording. Those prisoners are in jail for crimes such as homicide, theft, rape, and drug dealers.

"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 of several prisoners making calls to third parties can be still seen on the Facebook page of Programa Horizontes.

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

In June the specialist from the ministry made the first inspection to start blocking cell phone signals in prisons.

The specialist from the ministries of Justice, Technology and Telecommunications made an inspection at La Reforma jail, to begin the process of blocking cell phone calls.

In August 2018 law No.9597 was approved for the blocking of cellular signals inside the prisons. The goal is to block scams that the prisoners run from the jails.

Prisoners can continue to communicate with their contacts though the authorized public monitored phones available in the facilities, said authorities.


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Should telecom companies speed up the process of blocking cell phone signals inside jails?  We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com