Article courtesy of the Sun Sentinel
26, 2011
popularity, with estimates that as much as $300 million will be bilked from U.S.
residents — largely the elderly — this year alone. In Jamaica, proceeds of the
swindles are used to buy guns, drugs and flashy cars, with gang members
sometimes fighting and dying over the illicit cash and lists of potential clients. “It is a
plague,” said U.S. Postal Inspector Bladismir Rojo, who is on the front lines in
South Florida combating the fraud. “When word-of-mouth spreads of free money,
there is no way to put it out.”
involving senior citizens in Fort Lauderdale and Aventura
who each lost more than $50,000 to Jamaican-based lottery scams. Authorities say
victims of the frauds have lost homes, maxed out their credit cards and
sometimes become targets of physical threats.While there are variations of the scam, the essence is always the same: Victims are informed they have won prizes or money, but to claim their winnings, they need to wire money to cover fees or taxes.Once victims send money, the telemarketers press them to
send more. In extreme cases, authorities say, victims have ended up losing more
than $500,000.
The telemarketers often disguise their phone numbers to
make it look like they are calling from somewhere in the United States.
Sometimes the fraudsters ask for the money to be wired directly to Jamaica,
while other times they use middlemen in the United States or they persuade other
victims to act as intermediaries, according to law enforcement.
Complaints regarding Jamaica-based scams have more than
doubled in each of the last four years, skyrocketing from 1,867 in 2007 to
21,342 in 2010, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Law enforcement
officials fear the reported complaints may represent only a fraction of the true
number of victims.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unveiled a task force in May 2009 with
the Jamaican Constabulary Force, the nation’s police agency, to combat the
scams. Project JOLT (Jamaican Operations Linked to Telemarketing) was modeled
after a similar effort established more than a decade ago to curb telemarketing
fraud from Canada.
In the last three years, U.S. and Jamaican authorities have launched 389 investigations, arrested 111 people in Jamaica and the United
States and seized $1.13 million in assets, said Carmen Pino, ICE assistant
special agent in charge for South Florida. In addition, $251,000 has been
returned to U.S. victims.
“This is organized crime, not just one or two people getting together,” Pino said. “These are major criminal syndicates that are deeply entrenched in all sorts of criminal activity, and one of those is telemarketing.”
The battle to take down the lottery networks is ongoing.
U.S. and Jamaican authorities raided 12 locations and arrested 14 people in
September in the Jamaican city of Montego Bay, a hotbed for the lottery fraud.
Four Jamaican men living in Pennsylvania were arrested last month, accused of
convincing a Kansas man to give them $25,000 to secure his winnings in the “Mega
Million Lottery.”
In South Florida, a Deerfield Beach man was arrested on Nov. 19 outside his apartment as he waited for a package containing $9,000 in cash sent by an 88-year-old Kansas man who had been told he had won a $1 million sweepstakes, federal court records show. Trevor Charles Dolphy, 23, admitted he was collecting the money for a friend nicknamed “Evil” from Montego Bay, according to the U.S. Postal Inspection
Service.
Law enforcement officials say there is a simple rule to remember
when it comes to phone calls or mailings involving lotteries.
“If someone tells you that you have won a bunch of money and they need you to pay any money for any reason, it’s a fraud,” said C. Steven Baker, director of the Federal
Trade Commission’s Midwest Region.
Nearly 40 percent of reported victims of lottery scams last year were over the age of 70, according to FTC statistics.
Rojo said that many of the people targeted by the fraudsters have diminished mental capacity and refuse to accept there are no winnings even when shown clear proof they have been duped.
Jim Arlt, a senior special agent with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, said he has seen the human toll taken on seniors who have become victims. Arlt went to Jamaica in 2009 to talk with authorities there and watch them conduct raids.
One frustrated Minnesotan took the spark plugs out of his mother’s car and flattened her tires because she refused to stop wiring money to the crooks, even after sending
$800,000, Arlt said. Elderly women have stayed overnight at airports waiting in
vain for planes they were told would be bringing them their winnings, he
said.
Arlt said that when victims stop sending money, the scammers may
begin threatening them. He said people have been told that their homes will be
set on fire or their grandchildren killed if more money doesn’t come.
“They operate with impunity because they think they are on the
island and we can’t do anything,” Rojo said. He said U.S and Jamaican
authorities have been talking about extraditing telemarketers to face fraud
charges in the United States.
Rival gangs in Jamaica have battled one another after discovering they are calling U.S. victims from the same list of leads. Reports in the Jamaican press have attributed a number of murders over the last five years, including at least five beheadings, to turf battles sparked by lottery scams.
“The money is astounding and so is the damage it has done to people,” Arlt said.
jburstein@tribune.com or
954-356-4491.
