Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Business
Economics

Serial’s $2,500 Phone Bill and the Prison-Calling Racket

Serial???s $2,500 Phone Bill and the Prison-Calling Racket
Photographer: Corbis

The final installment of Serial, a cult-favorite podcast reinvestigating a 15-year-old murder case, will begin just like every other episode with the names of two companies: First a partially mispronounced plug for the show’s sponsor, then an unpaid mention of a prison telecom provider. “This is a Global Tel-Link prepaid call from Adnan Syed, an inmate at a Maryland correctional facility.”