MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — A prisoner in Uruguay tapped into the U.S. ambassador’s cellphone and sent messages to some of her contacts in an attempt to commit a still undisclosed fraud, authorities said Tuesday.
Officials said the inmate got Ambassador Julissa Reynoso’s voice mail password and gained access to her voice messages.
“Using that, he got access to some messages left by some of my friends. And he was able to — I don’t know how — send certain messages from prison to some of my contacts,” Reynoso, who is in the U.S. accompanying Uruguayan President Jose Mujica on his official visit, told Uruguay’s Canal 10 TV.
Reynoso played down the importance of the information accessed by the inmate, whose identity was not revealed. Canal 10 said the ambassador filed a complaint with Uruguay’s interior ministry.
Officials at the U.S. Embassy declined to comment.
The case was first reported by FM Gente radio station in the southern city of Maldonado. The station said police discovered the inmate had access to the ambassador’s phone while investigating him for other frauds committed while in prison.
Maldonado police spokesman Victor Iraola told The Associated Press that the radio station’s information was correct, but he declined to provide details because the investigation was still underway.
Police declined to disclose the method used by the inmate to commit fraud using the information gathered from the ambassador’s cellphone.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
