Raphael Vella
The scale of drug consumption inside the Corradino Correctional Facility (CCF) is rendered possible through a ruse in which prisoners exchange phone cards for drugs, MaltaToday can confirm.
Mobile phone top-up credit cards offer more than just “free talk-time” to users in the Paola prison: in recent years, they have also become a standard form of currency among inmates, who often re-sell the numbers in order to buy drugs.
Sources close to prison inmates and their relatives have confirmed with this newspaper that the number of drug addicts currently in prison is very high, despite efforts to increase discipline following the sudden resignation of director Sandro Gatt two weeks ago.
“Some of them will do anything to get their fix,” one source told MaltaToday, adding darkly that “everything” literally means “everything”.
One of the problems drug addicts face in prison is raising money to buy drugs. According to prison regulations, inmates are not allowed to handle hard cash, or to conduct any form of barter or trade. But this state of affairs has only inspired the more enterprising inmates to hit upon increasingly ingenious stratagems to circumvent these restrictions.
The latest in a string of such scams involves the re-sale of top-up cards, of the kind produced by Malta’s two mobile telephony service providers, Vodafone and Go Mobile.
“Say I was a drug addict in prison, and I wanted to buy drugs without any money,” one who social worker who works with prisoners told MaltaToday, “I would call a contact on the outside – for example, a family member – and ask them to buy one or more top-up cards, usually of the €20 denomination. They then scratch the card to reveal the 14-digit number, which they would read aloud to me over the phone.”
This number is taken down in writing, and passed on to the supplier – also in prison – who sells the individual 14-digit numbers to his own outside contacts: as a rule, for slightly less than their original value. (A €20 number would sell for around €16; a €10 number for €8, and so on.)
At no point would any hard cash from these transactions enter the prison; instead, each sale is meticulously recorded by the supplier, who would wait for the consignment of drugs (among other ordered commodities) to be delivered into prison through a variety of channels. These would then be partitioned according to each individual order, and delivered to the client.
The mobile telephony companies would have no reason to suspect an ongoing scam, as the cards would have originally been purchased for their full market price.
And as far as the drug dealer is concerned, the system represents an easy and relatively safe way to raise money fast: for even if caught, the reselling of a mobile top up card number over the phone is not itself a criminal offence.
The only net losers in the transaction are the drug-addicts themselves. Not only are they losing an estimated €4 euros per €20 spent on such cards; but they also receive a smaller quantity of drugs for the amount spent than they would otherwise get if they bought the drugs directly themselves, as the supplier usually takes a cut for himself.
“It’s a grim reality, prison,” the social worker said. “The strong get stronger, while the weak just sink deeper and deeper into a bottomless pit of debt.”
Drugs in prison
The easy accessibility of illicit substances in prison is something of an open secret, although the channels of importation remain a mystery.
Among the high profile inmates to have alleged an ongoing drug trafficking ring at CCF was Joseph Fenech (aka Zeppi l-Hafi), who claimed to have been assaulted by other prisoners for drawing attention to this racket.
A spokesperson for Justice Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici confirmed that the phenomenon persists, in spite of efforts to curtail abuse.
“Periodic random urine checks are held, and disciplinary action is taken against those found positive or who refuse to give a sample. On the other hand those found consistently negative may be given certain minor benefits by way of motivation,” the ministry official said.
Whenever drugs are seized, laboratory test are carried to identify the type and its purity.
“In an overwhelming majority of cases, the level of purity, referring to heroin, is very low. One can therefore surmise that a small amount that manages to enter the prison is made to go a long way by over cutting.
" Notwithstanding this, the CCF authorities make every effort to track down the entry channels of such substances and crack down on the trafficking of drugs within the prison walls.”
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