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🇵🇾 Paraguay /Crime & Justice

Knives, cellphones and marijuana found in preventive search at Paraguayan prison

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire Official statement Under investigation
  • Authorities found bladed weapons, cellphones, marijuana and other narcotics during a preventive search at Asunción’s National Pretrial Detention Center.
  • Prison officials said the operation exposed weaknesses in staffing, surveillance cameras and security controls.
  • Paraguay’s justice minister previously acknowledged that cellphones remain a problem across the country’s 19 prisons, which lack signal jammers.

A preventive search at Paraguay’s National Pretrial Detention Center in Asunción uncovered knives, cellphones, marijuana and other narcotic substances, the Justice Ministry said Monday.

controls to assess the effectiveness

· Rubén PeñaHe described the preventive search as part of regular prison security checks.

The operation, supported by the Special Police Operations Force, found “sharp objects, homemade stabbing weapons,” several cellphones and doses of marijuana, according to Rubén Peña, director general of penitentiary establishments. He said the search formed part of periodic checks intended to assess the effectiveness of prison security.

Peña said the seized items would not have entered the prison if security systems were “efficient.” He also said some prison agents and officials “do not do their job as they should,” while describing the detention center’s camera surveillance system as “incipient.”

sharp objects, homemade stabbing weapons

· Rubén PeñaHe listed items found during the operation.

The official said authorities still hope the government will eventually equip prisons with signal jammers. Such devices block cellphone, Wi-Fi, GPS and radio-frequency communications. Peña warned that inmates could use cellphones to coordinate crimes from inside prison.

efficient

· Rubén PeñaHe said the items would not have entered the prison if security systems were effective.

Justice Minister Rodrigo Nicora acknowledged on July 14 that cellphone smuggling is “a problem” in all 19 Paraguayan prisons and said none has signal jammers. He spoke after a search at the regional prison in Coronel Oviedo, about 150 kilometers from Asunción, where authorities seized 516 cellphones following allegations that cybercrimes had been committed from inside the facility.

a problem

· Rodrigo NicoraThe justice minister used the phrase to describe cellphone entry across Paraguay’s prisons.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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