Adrian Frater, News Editor
WESTERN BUREAU:
A Hanover woman became the first person to be convicted for activities connected to the infamous multimillion-dollar MoBay lotto scam yesterday, when the verdict was read in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court.
Resident Magistrate Winsome Henry sentenced Kerry-Ann Graham, a 25-year-old former employee of a call centre in the Montego Free Zone, to serve three years at hard labour.
Fleeced us citizen
Graham was convicted of fleecing United States citizen, 76-year-old Beverley Rinker, out of US$127,000 (almost J$8 million).
The convicted woman, who had initially pleaded not guilty to the two charges of conspiracy to defraud and obtaining by false presence, yesterday instructed her attorney Carl Miller to change her plea to guilty after Rinker flew in from the United States for the case to give evidence.
"This is just the beginning as we have other persons (scammers) awaiting trial and we are still busily pursuing other persons who are still involved in the scam," said Assistant Commissioner of Police Denver Frater, officer with responsibility for Area One (Trelawny, St James, Hanover and Westmoreland).
During the trial, which started on Monday, the court was told that Graham contacted Rinker by telephone in June 2005, saying she was calling from International Sweepstakes and Lotteries to inform her that she had won US$3.5 million.
Graham reportedly told Rinker that she was the attorney for International Sweepstakes and Lotteries and that, in order to collect the winnings, the complainant had to send her US$3,000 by cheque to process her winnings, which she did.
Payments for 'winnings'
Between June 2005 and January 2006, Rinker was reportedly asked to make other payments for various fees related to her 'winnings'.
When she finally became convinced that it was a scam, Rinker engaged the support of local law enforcement officers to help her recover her money. Local investigations led to Graham's arrest.
Henry gave Graham, the mother of a three-year-old daughter, two three-year prison terms that will run concurrently. Come January 12, the Crown will pursue a new case against Graham under the Proceeds of Crime Act, to determine if her assets were illicitly obtained.
While it has left several communities awash with cash, the lotto scam, which started back in 2005, has reportedly influenced Montego Bay's crime problem. The situation has resulted in an average of more than 150 murders per year over the last three years.
In a recent interview with The Gleaner, Frater said police investigations have determined that billions of dollars are flowing into the criminal underworld from the scam and the monies were being used to buy weapons for criminal purposes.
"If you look in recent times at the calibre weapons that are recovered by the police, the amount of rounds, ammunition being expended and recovered at crime scenes, and the motives, investigations point to the lotto scam," said Frater. "If you look at some communities, the sudden rise to fame in terms of assets (such as) houses and motor cars, these are not cheap. The lifestyles of some persons clearly demonstrate the volume of cash that is being circulated."
In July, Assistant Commissioner of Police Les Green, the head of the Major Investigation Task Force, announced that a new task force comprising American agents was being formed to intensify the war on the scammers.
adrian.frater@gleanerjm.com
Lotto 'scamline'
2005 (June): News broke that several Montego Bay communities were awash with cash from a scheme by which illicitly obtained personal data were used to con American citizens into sending money as processing fees to local 'scammers', who had fooled them into believing they had won a lottery.
2006 (December): Lynda Langford, country operations manager at Montego Bay's Affiliated Computer Services, told a Gleaner Editors' Forum that the e-fraud component of the scam was negatively impacting business and could result in the company pulling out of Jamaica, which would result in the loss of some 140 jobs.
2006 (December): Two police constables were arrested in Montego Bay in connection with the lottery scam. They reportedly confiscated $97,000 from persons involved in the lottery scam.
2007 (February): Operation Kingfish raided Granville, Bogue Village and Westgate Hills, in the Montego Bay area, arresting 32 persons and seizing $1 million in cash, nine high-end motor cars, cellular phones, computers and documents.
2007 (February): Three men and a woman are arrested in Anchovy, St James. Several documents bearing the names and telephone numbers of persons in the United States were seized.
2007 (October): A New Jersey grandmother, identified as 72-year-old Ann Mowle, committed suicide after she was reportedly conned out of her life savings of US$248,000 by a Jamaican scam artiste.
2007 (November): A team of local police investigators travels to the US to interview victims of the scam in an intelligence/evidence-gathering mission.
2008 (April): A 28-year-old man is jailed after the seizure of documents, including a copy of a US$10-million cheque that was being sent by courier services to a US destination to an unsuspecting victim of the lottery scam.
