Fraudster forfeits 7 cars, $3m to State
Published:Friday | June 23, 2023 | 12:15 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
Convicted fraudster Garcia Perez, who had conned more than 100 people in a multimillion-dollar motor vehicle scam, on Tuesday gave the State the green light for the forfeiture of seven cars and close to $3 million.
The cash and the vehicles were seized by the police in 2019.
In making the forfeiture order, the Supreme Court also instructed that seven of the victims be reimbursed monies that they had paid over to Perez as a down payment for the vehicles.
Perez signed a consent form authorising the Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) to forfeit the cash and vehicles.
The conman, who goes by the names ‘Tituba Mogaba’, ‘Omer Haughton’, ‘Dean Haughton’ and ‘Dr Garcia Enriques Perez’, was implicated in several different motor vehicle and job scams.
However, in April 2018, he was arrested in relation to the said motor vehicle scam and, in July 2019, pleaded guilty to 114 counts of obtaining money by means of false pretence and was sentenced to four years on each count in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court. The sentences however were to run concurrently.
At the time of his sentencing, Perez was serving time for similar offences and the four-year sentence was to start on completion of the other sentence.
Daina-Marie Dennis and Nashony Barrow, who were charged with him in the car scam, were however freed in May of the same year after no evidence was offered against them.
The trio were arrested and charged in April 2018, following investigations by the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) into the activities of Prisoners for Christ (PFC) Telemarketing Services. This entity purported to be able to import motor vehicles upon the request of a down payment of between $85,000 and $100,000 until the arrival of the vehicles.
Several operations at their offices resulted in the seizure of several motor vehicles and US and Jamaican dollars. Also, based on reports made to MOCA, more than $13 million was fleeced from unsuspecting persons.
On Tuesday, counsel for the ARA told the court that Perez had signed a consent form.
The agency was previously ordered to produce a valuation report on the seven cars but the attorney told the judge that there was a delay in getting the report but that it was no longer needed.
Meanwhile, attorney-at-law Andrew Irvin, who represented the seven complainants, as interested parties, said he filed an application for his clients to be refunded their cash after the ARA applied for the forfeiture order.
“I had to make the application under the Proceeds of Crime Act which allows for the victims to be refunded monies that they were defrauded which was seized or recovered by the police,” he said.
Irvin indicated that the monies paid over from his client range from a low of $85,000 to about $400,000.