Newly energised task force puts scammers in cross hairs

12 Feb 2022/Kimone Francis/ Senior Staff Reporter kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com

IN AN apparent call for legislation targeting the migration of lottery scammers who pump millions of dollars into the underworld, Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson has insisted that the police are doing their part to disrupt activities and lay charges.

“The police force is a creature of law. There’s a reason we constantly advocate for changes in laws and perhaps we have to do some changes in the laws around lottery scammers to deal with that,” Anderson said during Friday’s police-military press conference, held to launch the Joint Anti-Gang Task Force.

“There’s nothing that prevents a Jamaican from going or moving anywhere in Jamaica. So, you will find as the wealth increases, they’re going to be moving around.”

He was responding to questions surrounding the migratory patterns of the illicit players found to be swindling US$300 million per annum from Americans.

Police intelligence, Anderson said, has led to the recent recovery of 50 lead lists in one instance and scores of others across the island. Lead lists are sheets of papers with credit cards and other personal information which are used by scammers in carrying out their illicit activities.

Police Constable Shelian Allen is among the latest Jamaicans to be held in connection with lottery scamming and is facing charges in the US.

Allen, 42, was detained by members of the Homeland Security Investigation team shortly after arriving in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, last week and has been accused of being a mastermind in the scheme.

“Ultimately, they’re going to be put before the courts and depending on the sentencing or regime that they’re exposed to, they will either get back into business quickly or they’ll be away for a while anticipating alternatives to lottery scamming,”said Anderson.

Some 48 people have been charged in recent months for lottery-scamming crimes and three guns seized, along with $3.7 million and 50 phones.

Pressed on whether the AntiLottery Scam Task Force is failing, given the pervasiveness of lottery scamming in the country and its link with gun violence, Anderson said he was not of that view.

He argued that the work against lottery scamming has been ongoing, noting that only recently Jamaicans are starting to make the connection between the scheme and violent crimes.

“The lottery-scamming task force has been doing its operations all along. They have sort of re-energised some of those operations as they’re working with partners. It’s been ongoing with our foreign partners and also the other departments of the force to deal with this matter of lottery scamming and the money from it,”said Anderson.

At the same time, he said the newly formed task force, which has been operating fluidly across the country for a week, has secured the arrest of several players in the fraudulent scheme.

He said already, the task force has seized seven illegal firearms, 1,200 pounds of compressed marijuana and has disrupted an illegal alcohol operation that was funding gang activities.

“We have arrested four persons for lottery scamming and another 16 of them to make a total 20 persons who are involved in violence and crime,” he said.

The task force is a team of approximately 70 men and women trained between the Jamaica Defence Force and the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and led by a cadre of sub-officers from the JCF tested at the military level.

“We don’t just get to a point like this. We didn’t just throw together some people and say we want to go and do some joint operations. We are sitting in a planning room ... to be able to launch the sorts of operations required in this highly violent environment,” the commissioner said.

“We’re determined; Jamaican people are going to be safe.”

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