Can You Hear Me Now?

September 07, 2006 12:00am

FOUR prisoners in an El Salvador jail hid mobile phones, a phone charger and spare chips in their bowels so they could co-ordinate crimes from their cells, prison officials said today.

The men, all gang members, wrapped their phones and accessories in plastic and inserted them into their rectums "far enough to reach their intestines," Ramon Arevalo, director of the maximum security Zacatecoluca prison, said.

Mr Arevalo said the ruse was discovered during X-ray examinations following six weeks of investigations.



The men, members of the ultra-violent Mara Salvatrucha street gang and the first in El Salvador known to go to such lengths to make phone calls in jail, used the mobile phones to manage robberies, blackmail and murders outside, Mr Arevalo said.

The Zacatecoluca prison is also known by the nickname "Zacatraz," after the US island penitentiary Alcatraz.

Zacatecoluca is about 65km east of the capital San Salvador and currently home to 337 inmates.