Chilean National Arrested in Texas for Using Jamming Device to Disrupt Police Communications

A Chilean man was caught in Texas after a break-in. During the arrest, he used a radio jamming device to stop the arresting officers from talking to each other.

There was an incident on February 8 that led to the arrest of Ignacio Castillo Contreras, 22. He was charged with residential burglary and interfering with a radio frequency licensed to a government body.

Fox 26 said that Contreras told the judge that he is not a U.S. citizen and has only been in Houston for a few months during his probable cause hearing. He said he was staying at a hotel.

After Contreras broke into a house in the 6400 block of Sewanee Avenue, police found a radio frequency jamming device in his backpack.

Court records show that officers who were close to the device couldn’t use their body-worn cameras and key fobs to lock and open patrol cars properly. They also couldn’t talk on the hand-held radios that the cops gave them.

A tech expert named Juan Guevara Torres told Fox 26 that a radio frequency tracking device sends out a lot of very strong messages around you. “It blocks signals from going to point A to point B.”

“In my opinion, as a tech expert, I can tell you that whoever did this has some tactical knowledge on how to use this device and where to place them,” said Torres.

Fox 26 reports that former Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said Contreras’s ability to “jam up the local police officers who were responding to the calls their radios, key fobs getting into their cars and body cams makes it a dangerous situation for law enforcement.”

“If you imagine an ordinary criminal committing a crime with a radio frequency jamming device, now add to that someone with real bad intent who wants to harm a lot of people like a terrorist, a mass murderer, and it gets scary quick,” he said.