Prison guards intercept carrier pigeon with a cellphone

SÃO PAULO — Prison guards foiled a new attempt to smuggle a cellphone into a Brazilian prison by carrier pigeon — this one wearing a tiny backpack — and said Friday that the practice is becoming familiar.

An exhausted pigeon wearing a small makeshift backpack was intercepted just outside walls at the Danilo Pinheiro prison near Sorocaba, said a spokesman for the São Paulo State Prison Affairs Department. The representative spoke on condition of anonymity.

Inside the backpack was a cellphone and a piece of paper with the name of the inmate who was waiting for the phone, the spokesman said. He declined to reveal the name of the inmate.

"The use of carrier pigeons to smuggle cellphones into prisons is becoming almost commonplace," he said. "Guards now keep a sharp eye on pigeons as well as on inmates."

In March, guards at the same prison saw a pigeon resting on a wire with a small cloth bag tied to one leg. They lured the bird down with food and discovered components of a cellphone in the bag.

In May, police foiled a plot to smuggle cellphones into a maximum-security lockup using a remote-control model helicopter at another Brazilian prison.

Imprisoned Brazilian gangsters use cellphones to coordinate criminal activity outside and inside an overcrowded prison system where torture, killings and gang violence are routine.In 2006, São Paulo's notorious First Capital Command gang — whose leaders are based in prison — used cellphones to launch a wave of assaults on police, banks and buses that left more than 200 people dead.