Avia Collinder, Gleaner Writer

A NEW scam is in town and local banks and other financial institutions are being targeted.

This time, the tricksters are using fraudulent papers to get motor-vehicle loans and going into hiding when the loans are to be repaid.

Last year, local banks were swindled out of more than $100 million by persons who used fraudulent documents to secure motor-vehicle loans.

"Persons created fictitious documents, such as water bills, light bills and employment letters, and applied for loans for high-end vehicles. The fraud was only discovered when the loans went bad," Superintendent Colbert Edwards, head of the police Fraud Squad, told The Sunday Gleaner.

Fictitious payslips

According to Superintendent Edwards, fictitious payslips were among the documents presented to the banks. He said at one bank, there were 23 cases, involving $60 million.

While not disclosing the name of the bank in question, Edwards said at this and other financial institutions, the vehicles for which loans were secured included, Toyota Tauruses, Pajeros, Honda Ridgelines, Honda Accords and Acura RXXs.

Edwards said the documents provided to the banks were not uniform and appeared to have been created on personal computers.

He said the police had no evidence to suggest that there was a mastermind behind this new wave of fraudulent activity, but investigators suspect that information is being shared among the perpetrators.

The Fraud Squad is not attaching blame to the banks, arguing that they exercised the necessary due diligence before awarding loans.

According to Superintendent Edwards, "The telephone numbers given also checked out. When the banks called places of employment, these were verified by the individual who answered."

Discovery

Edwards said it was only after the loans went bad that the banks discovered that the references were fraudulent, and that the information about the places of employment was false.

The police said, however, that no arrests had been made, but three of the high-end vehicles were recovered after they were found in a car lot waiting to be sold.

Efforts to get a comment from the Jamaica Bankers' Association have, so far, been unsuccessful as its president, Patrick Hylton, has been unavailable.