'Block Pollsmoor cell signal'

CAPE Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has called for cellphone signal-blocking technology to be piloted at Pollsmoor Prison, warning that inmates are using mobile phones to run criminal networks from behind bars.

- BY BRANDON NEL

In a statement released on Friday, Hill-Lewis said he had written to Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald, informing him that extortion and other crimes were being coordinated from within the prison.

"The City has received various reports that crime and extortion activity is being coordinated by phone from within Pollsmoor," Hill-Lewis said.

"On a recent roads project inspection in Bishop Lavis, I was informed that the contractor had left the site due to extortion threats made by phonecall from an underworld figure inside Pollsmoor.