COPS TARGET SCAMMERS’ MOMS

WESTERN BUREAU:

Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police Vernon Ellis is warning that law enforcement will be targetting mothers who knowingly shelter players in illicit lottery scamming. His suggestion that scammers’ mothers will face arrest followed last week’s seizure of several illegal weapons over a 48-hour period in western Jamaica.

Among the firearms law enforcement in the Area One police division removed from off the streets of western parishes are four high-powered weapons, two AK47, one M16 rifle and one SLR – all linked to the spiralling crime rate caused by lottery scamming.

“Lottery scamming money is being used to purchase the guns that are on the streets. They are responsible for the guns coming into the region. And many of the mothers of the perpetrators are registering cars, houses and other criminal properties in their names ... they very well know these are ill-gotten gains,” Ellis, who was one of the original members of the Anti-Lottery Scam Task Force, told The Sunday Gleaner last week.

He declared that the authorities intend to seize these assets and interdict the mothers for concealment of criminal property.

“The mothers are going to be charged for concealment, once we can prove it. They are condoning too much,” Ellis charged.

Noting that the scammers and their accomplices have become too comfortable buying houses in communities that are depreciating because of their acts, he also warned that other family members will be arrested and charged if they are found complicit in concealing any ill-got assets.

“These scammers are not envisaging the faces of their victims and so they are cold-hearted towards them,” Ellis stated, pointing out that his wish is to see between 40 and 50 extraditions in the near future, as they take scammers and their relatives down.

“The Anti-Lottery Scam Task Force and all members of the law intend to chase them out of town,” he stated.

Lottery scamming became prevalent in Montego Bay, St James, in the early 2000s, growing significantly between 2009 and 2010, which coincided with the explosion of the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector.

Scammers were able to access the personal information of persons who do online business and use it to extort primarily unsuspecting elderly persons in the United States, causing untold pain and suffering for the victims.

In the last 13 years, as cash-rich scammers battle for turf and influence, crime, especially homicide, escalated, spreading its vicious tentacles across western Jamaica, including into some of the quietest rural communities that were once crime free.

Eventually, several rural areas in the western region were infiltrated by scammers who have now spread to every parish across Jamaica.

In places such as St Catherine, scamming has become intertwined with extortion. Scammers and gangsters formed an alliance, as the latter were recruited to provide protection.

According to a police source, parishes such as St Ann, Trelawny, Westmoreland, Hanover, St Elizabeth and Manchester have become problem areas, with several high-end luxury vehicles seen parked in the yards of young men with no known source of income.

“We reach a point weh Lotto scam a mash up Westmoreland. It start mash up parts of Trelawny, it a mash up Clarendon. And the whole a St Elizabeth, which was peaceful and had only crimes like praedial larceny, is now controlled by scammers,” the source told The Sunday Gleaner, adding that Manchester was under siege up to last year.

POLICE FORCE INFILTRATED

The police force was also infiltrated, causing Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, when he was the commissioner of police, to interdict the staff at the Mt Salem Police Station in Montego Bay for their alleged involvement in lottery scamming in 2009.

A year ago, Shelian Cherine Allen, a female officer stationed in St James, was arrested in the United States, accused of being the mastermind behind a lottery scamming network in Trelawny. She pleaded guilty for her involvement.

Over the years, several initiatives, in partnership with international law enforcement agencies, have been implemented to cauterise the illicit trade that has robbed countless elderly Americans of all their assets.

The Law Reform (Fraudulent Transactions) (Special Provisions) Act, 2013, was enacted to combat lottery scamming, advance-fee fraud and other fraudulent transactions.

The Anti-Lottery Scam Task Force was also established as local and international counterparts work to put an end to the illegal trade, but in recent years it has come under fire for dropping the ball.

BRING THEM TO JUSTICE

In spite of the efforts, including local/international partnerships, lottery scamming continues to thrive, raking in billions of Jamaican dollars for the criminal underworld.

Just last week a Jamaican national, who was previously extradited to the United States from Jamaica, pleaded guilty in the US District Court for the Western District of North Carolina in connection with a fraudulent Jamaica-based lottery scheme that targetted elderly victims in the United States.

According to court documents, Antony Linton Stewart, 39, of St James, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

As part of his plea agreement, Stewart admitted that he contacted elderly Americans by telephone and falsely told them that they had won money and other prizes in a sweepstakes or lottery. Stewart told victims that they needed to send money to pay fees and taxes on their winnings. He contacted victims repeatedly for as long as they could be persuaded to send additional money.

At Stewart’s direction, victims used wire transfers and the US Postal Service, among other means, to send money to individuals in the United States and Jamaica who served as intermediaries, and passed on the money to Stewart. In fact, no lottery ever existed, and no victim ever received any money or other prizes. The scheme defrauded victims of hundreds of thousands of dollars, said the US Department of Justice in a press release.

“Stewart is the latest example in the department’s ongoing efforts to root out and deter fraud from foreign locations that targets our most vulnerable consumers,” said the release.

“Each year, millions of older Americans suffer heavy financial losses in the hands of scammers operating in the United States and abroad,” said US Attorney Dena J. King for the Western District of North Carolina.

“Today’s guilty plea underscores our efforts to investigate and bring to justice perpetrators of elder fraud schemes no matter where they originate. We will continue to join forces with our law enforcement counterparts to do all we can to stop these criminals from stealing from our seniors.”

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com