Lottery scammers shift tactics
Criminals taking control of US victims’ bank accounts to make elaborate purchases, transfer funds
Published:Sunday | April 28, 2024 | 7:21 AMLivern Barrett - Senior Staff Reporter
A debit card belonging to an elderly woman residing in the United States (US) was allegedly used by a scammer based in Jamaica to purchase a new Mercedes-Benz motor car in Japan and to cover shipping costs.
In another case, an accused lottery scammer in western Jamaica allegedly used the US bank account of an 80-year-old American woman to apply for a US$5,000 loan from the same financial institution.
“That loan was only rejected because the bank said they did not think that the person [the elderly woman] would be able to cover that loan,” one investigator close to the case told The Sunday Gleaner last week.
“But the application for the loan was made by persons here in Jamaica.”
Amid a continued rise in fraud crimes against elderly Americans, Jamaican authorities say both cases, which remain active investigations, are prime examples of the emerging and innovative schemes concocted by lottery scammers here, replacing remittance companies and ‘money mules’ as the preferred route to transport the proceeds of their criminal activities.
A new phase of their scamming now involves the use of debit cards that are linked to US bank accounts of their victims; as well as PayPal, the US-based money transfer platform; and gift cards, head of Jamaica’s Lottery Scam Task Force (LSTF), Deputy Superintendent Luhas Daniels disclosed.
“As it relates to them using Western Union, we haven’t seen that in a while – or MoneyGram. What we mostly see now are wire transfers and the use of Visa debit cards,” Daniels told The Sunday Gleaner during an interview last week.
EASY ACCESS
According to the Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) operated by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), 88,262 Americans over the age of 60 years reported losing a total of US$3.1 billion through various scams in 2022.
The US$3.1 billion in financial losses marked a 121 per cent increase over the US$1.4 billion reported the previous year.
Gaining access to and control of a victim’s US bank account is not a difficult task for Jamaican lottery scammers, the investigator revealed.
In a typical case, he explained, elderly vulnerable victims are tricked or cajoled into sharing sensitive personal data with scammers who use it to take control of their bank account or open a new account in the victim’s name at another financial institution.
A debit card linked to the account is then shipped to Jamaica either by the victims or by middlemen acting at the direction of the scammers. In some instances, the cards are taken to Jamaica by associates.
“These cards are now ready to be used in Jamaica. And once they have that, there are a number of things that they can do, such as transferring cash from the victims’ US accounts to other accounts and making online purchases.”
In a “few recent cases”, these purchases include motor vehicles sourced in Japan, the investigator disclosed, but stated, “We don’t want to share much about that because it’s an active investigation.”
100+ CARDS CONFISCATED
Since the start of the year, “more than 100” debit cards linked to accounts at major American banks have been confiscated, mainly in western Jamaica, Daniels, the head of the LSTF, confirmed.
The most recent case occurred last Monday, when a hotel worker in St James was arrested after he allegedly withdrew US$820 from an ATM outside the Sangster International Airport in the parish.
Daniels disclosed that in some cases, the cards are intercepted by Jamaica Customs Agency personnel and handed over for further investigations to determine and locate the intended recipients.
The accused scammer based in western Jamaica who tried to get a US$5,000 loan using his victim’s account also used her personal data to create a PayPal account, the investigator claimed, citing a review of financial records.
“We saw where a number of deposits were made to the PayPal account … one for US$5,000. We also saw where the PayPal account was used to make payouts to persons in Brooklyn, New York,” the investigator disclosed.
BREACHES
A breakdown of the data shows that there were 7,849 complaints about personal data breach which resulted in losses totalling US$127.7 million; 4,825 complaints of identity theft which resulted in losses totalling US$42 million; and 2,388 complaints related to lottery, sweepstakes and inheritance fraud scams, which cost victims US$69.8 million.
Approximately 5,456 victims reported losing more than US$100,000, while the average loss per victim was calculated at US$35,101, the IC3 said in its annual report published last year.
California, Florida, New York, and Texas were the top four states targeted by scammers, with combined losses of approximately US$1.4 billion.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) disclosed, in a report to Congress last October, that through hundreds of criminal and civil actions, it has returned “hundreds of millions of dollars” to victims in recent years.
The DOJ revealed, too, that its agents are working with financial institutions to freeze millions of dollars stolen from elderly victims.
Since the start of this year, four persons have been convicted for lottery scam-related crimes, while 19 individuals are still before the courts, Daniels disclosed.
According to Daniels, the reduction in the murder rate in St James in recent years is one indication that the increased operational activities by the LSTF are beginning to bear fruit.
Murders in the tourism-dependent parish have fluctuated since an all-time high of 341 killings were recorded in 2017, moving from 102 in 2018 to 187 last year, according to police statistics.
Up to April 20 this year, the police recorded 42 murders in St James, an eight per cent decline when compared with the corresponding period last year.
However, local law enforcement officers say their investigations are being frustrated by the lack of cooperation by a number of state agencies, including tax and immigration authorities.
“So, for example, if we want to get the identities of some people, we have to write to one hundred people before we get the information,” one investigator complained.
“At the tax office, for example, it is very hard to get information to help identify the perpetrators because some of these things take forever.”