.The Government of El Salvador has invested $10 million in an effective signal blocking system that remotely alerts them 24/7 if there is a mobile phone and internet signal in the country’s prisons, but they will reinforce it with blockers like those at the CECOT.

Manuel Aguilar, the General Superintendent of Electricity and Telecommunications, confirmed that President Nayib Bukele’s government will continue to modernize the internet and cell signal blocking system in all prisons in El Salvador.

The official revealed that the Bukele administration has invested around $10 million in modernizing the signal blocking in the different penitentiary centers to prevent calls from being made or received from prisons.

“In the CECOT (Terrorism Confinement Center), we have installed blockers that are much better than those installed in other prisons. We are talking about an abysmal difference in technology, and we will start to change them in all prisons so that they all have blockers like those at the CECOT, which are the latest technology that can exist,” said the SIGET chief.

Aguilar detailed that these new last-generation signal blockers allow for effective blocking of voice and data signals.

Since June 2019, when the current government assumed the presidency, the Territorial Control Plan (PCT) has been put in place, which among its branches has total control of the prisons that in the ARENA and FMLN governments were handed over to different terrorist structures. One of the first orders issued by the Head of State was to cut all mobile phone and internet signals in prisons to prevent gang members from ordering crimes from those facilities.

“We discovered that there was a signal, and we corrected it at the beginning of this government. It is an investment of more than ten million dollars,” said the superintendent.

Aguilar explained that currently, the Government, through SIGET and the General Directorate of Prisons, maintains an effective blocking system that indicates 24 hours a day, seven days a week if there is a mobile phone and internet signal in the country’s prisons remotely.

“I can confirm 100% that there is no signal in any prison in El Salvador, and there has not been since we implemented this new system, unlike before when there was no control, and the criminals had control of the prisons.”

The superintendent regretted that despite the fact that in 2019, the Telecommunications Law was in force, which ordered the blocking of mobile phone and internet signals in prisons, it was only partially done because it was not enough to monitor for a few hours.

“The engineers used backpacks with equipment to measure the signal, but they only did it inside, and when they left, control was lost, so there was always a signal in prisons,” the official said.