EDITORIAL - Jamming lotto scammers

AT LONG last a money-transfer service provider is doing something to tackle the massive sweepstakes and lottery scammers who have made western Jamaica their headquarters for more than five years.

The news that MoneyGram has ordered several of its agencies in western Jamaica closed because of concerns about the scam should not be taken lightly. In this highly competitive business, this decision must have come after serious consideration and must be welcomed as an attempt by MoneyGram to prevent scam artists and career criminals from using its service.

Police investigating this massive and widespread fraud have repeatedly pointed to the key elements in this scam: call centres in the Montego Bay Freezone from where scammers obtain personal details of their targets, telephone service and money-transfer agents.

Money-transfer services are an essential part of these highly organised operations, as victims are usually told to wire sums of up to US$5,000 to a representative in order to pay taxes or customs duties on their multimillion-dollar winnings. Scammers prefer to use wire transfers because they are quick and reliable.

Victims, mainly elderly folk, who can be found in towns and cities from Honolulu to Maine in the United States, have reportedly paid over more than US$30 million to these scammers. It is not hard to imagine that old people caught up in the euphoria of striking it rich may not question why they are being asked to pay out a few thousand dollars in order to collect millions. The untold grief wreaked on these elderly persons is widespread, with the suicide by drowning of a 72-year-old New Jersey grandmother the saddest of all. And here in Jamaica, many families have been ripped apart because their loved ones have fallen victim to this lucrative scam.

Lottery scams are not new, but today there seems to be an abundance of schemes, ranging from inheritance ruses to 'stranded friends' in faraway places, along with fraudulent solicitations via letters, emails and phone calls. With Internet technology, even more creative ways are being found to bilk the unsuspecting and those who are down on their luck. By their activities, the scammers have not only sullied Jamaica's name in the international community, but they are threatening the viability of businesses in the Montego Bay Freezone. In some cases, the scammers have threatened physical violence when the victims refused to cooperate, affirming the nation's status as one big criminal network.

puzzling

It is incomprehensible that the police and the lottery-scam task force have not been able to nab the masterminds behind this horrendous scheme. What is more puzzling is that even with the need for recipients to present identification when conducting transactions with money-transfer operators, there is no massive clampdown.

Many people have no sympathy for scam victims, accusing them of being greedy. And often these victims are humiliated when they find out that they have been duped. This lack of sympathy may explain why it has been so difficult to actually apprehend and arrest the masterminds, as well as to move to seize their assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Although Operation Kingfish announced years ago that it was targeting organised crime, including the lottery scam, it has very few convictions to show in relation to this network, and from all reports the scams continue to thrive.

Legitimate businesses and honest people are always the ones to suffer. Many persons who conduct business with MoneyGram will be inconvenienced.

Hopefully, this move will be accompanied by some rigorous measures that will help to restore confidence in the money-transfer business. If all that happens is that scammers move their sphere of activity to a rival agency, it will take a very long time for us to catch up with these criminals.

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