Prisoners ingest SIM cards to thwart Law Enforcement

Jamaica: High-profile prisoners have used swallowing SIM cards as a tactic to frustrate prison authorities and restricting them from acquiring devices for forensic examination in search of contacts, conversations, and plots.

Despite cell phone jammers installed in some prisons, there have been reports about inmates making and receiving calls freely.

The National Security Minister, Dr Horace Chang, affirms that the law enforcers are always a step ahead of the criminals; several dastardly plans have been intercepted.

A SIM card, a small card usually inserted into cell phones which holds users’ information, allows them access to cellular networks, thereby pinpointing the location of the user. Smartphones, however, can maintain their connection even without a physical SIM card, as per as there is Internet services.

In July 2020, Dr Chang announced a plan to shift prisoners who issued outside instructions to new cells fitted with cellular signal-blocking communication jammers to halt the criminal activities emanating from behind prison walls.

Of recent, he admitted that controlling communication is a challenge, underlining inmates’ ingenuity in eluding control but making sure that things on the side of law enforcement were getting better at controlling such efforts.

A highly placed law enforcer revealed that some inmates swallow SIM cards to avoid search and seizure efforts, while others use burner phones for anonymity. According to a gastroenterologist, Dr Mike Mills, swallowing SIM cards has no short-term health effects, as the card will go through the digestive system undigested.

According to Dr Chang, X-rays would have proven whether chips had been ingested, indicative of the determination and willingness of law enforcers to keep a step ahead of inmates’ tactics. Data on the recent searches and seizures by the Department of Correctional Services remains pending.

Those confiscated cell phones have led to convictions, including the recent guilty verdicts for King Valley Gang leader Derval Williams and his associate, Christon Grant. They conspired via phones while incarcerated to murder a Crown witness. The phones were found in their cells in June 2020, and thereafter both were indicted, with sentencing pending.

Recorded conversations became very relevant in the Klansman gang trial, at the end of 2023, where 15 of the 33 accused were convicted. It was a former gangster-turned-Crown-witness who helped to provide crucial evidence using recorded telephone conversations to secure the largest gang trial in Caribbean history.