‘Scamming’ driving Hanover’s murder spree – Bunting

WESTERN BUREAU:

National security minister Peter Bunting says he is distressed that Hanover, which was once the nation's safest parish, is now the second most murderous.

Speaking at a consultation session held at Rusea's High School in Lucea, Hanover, on Thursday, Bunting said most of the murders can be linked to the illegal lottery scam and criminals from other areas infiltrating and taking up residence in the parish.

The minister also stated that scamming, which is in part facilitated by poor parenting, was at the heart of the problem, which has seen the parish registering a record 48 murders so far this year - a 70 per cent increase over last year.

"During the third week of this month where you had that bunch of murders in Hanover, when I look at the stats up to that point for the month of September, by the end of that week, you had more murders in Hanover than Kingston and St Andrew combined. I tell you this so you can understand the scale of the problem that we are facing in Hanover," said Bunting.

"One of the things you may have noticed is that the three parishes, in terms of murder rates, are St James, Westmoreland, and Hanover. What those three have in common is they are the centre of lotto scamming in Jamaica," said Bunting. "It is not coincidence. Where you have the concentration of lottery scamming, you have murders. I have been preaching, warning people that wherever you find lottery scamming, as night follows day, murder is going to follow."

In his breakdown of Hanover's crime statistics, commanding officer for the Hanover Police Division Superintendent Wilfred Campbell said the Western Hanover police areas of Green Island and Lucea registered 18 and 16 murders, respectively, accounting for 74 per cent of the murders in the parish.