Dear Editor,
The current crime situation in St James will continue to rise unless law enforcement, the Government, and the Jamaican people finally and fully understand the extend to which lotto scamming has become ingrained into the lives of many for over a decade.
After graduating high school, college or sixth form a typical person has a few options: be a hotel worker, be call centre agent, or leave. Majority choose the call centre or hotel, which offer long hours and low-paying jobs. Those were the options of many Montegonians at the time.
At the same time, St James people are fun-loving people who desire a life that low-paying jobs — taking calls for more than eight hours from angry foreigners or pretending to be nice to tourists — do not facilitate. Also the low-paying jobs do not allow them to take care of families and meet basic needs.
Then came the lotto scammers who offered better jobs with rising income prospects and work/life balance. Many will tell you that they were willing to get a legal stable job, but they understood that benefit to scamming outweighed the cost at the time. They saw an opportunity and they took it, and for decades the police and leaders turned a blind eye while lotto scamming became ingrained in St James. It’s now an organised crime that touches every segment of MontegoBay and Jamaica. Call centre reps sell sheets with customer information, workers at remittance places get paid to pull the money from the system once it’s sent, government employees get paid to issue fake IDs, bank employees take deposits from scammers, politicians take donations from scammers, gunmen are used as protectors, businesses get investment from scamming money, telecommunications firms make millions, houses built, families supported, and the entire economy of St James is fuelled by lotto scamming.
What then does one expect to happen when scammers are arrested and extradited? Nothing but revenge, reprisal, and bloodletting.
Monica Simpson
Kingston 5
monicasimpsonbrown@yahoo.ca
The current crime situation in St James will continue to rise unless law enforcement, the Government, and the Jamaican people finally and fully understand the extend to which lotto scamming has become ingrained into the lives of many for over a decade.
After graduating high school, college or sixth form a typical person has a few options: be a hotel worker, be call centre agent, or leave. Majority choose the call centre or hotel, which offer long hours and low-paying jobs. Those were the options of many Montegonians at the time.
At the same time, St James people are fun-loving people who desire a life that low-paying jobs — taking calls for more than eight hours from angry foreigners or pretending to be nice to tourists — do not facilitate. Also the low-paying jobs do not allow them to take care of families and meet basic needs.
Then came the lotto scammers who offered better jobs with rising income prospects and work/life balance. Many will tell you that they were willing to get a legal stable job, but they understood that benefit to scamming outweighed the cost at the time. They saw an opportunity and they took it, and for decades the police and leaders turned a blind eye while lotto scamming became ingrained in St James. It’s now an organised crime that touches every segment of MontegoBay and Jamaica. Call centre reps sell sheets with customer information, workers at remittance places get paid to pull the money from the system once it’s sent, government employees get paid to issue fake IDs, bank employees take deposits from scammers, politicians take donations from scammers, gunmen are used as protectors, businesses get investment from scamming money, telecommunications firms make millions, houses built, families supported, and the entire economy of St James is fuelled by lotto scamming.
What then does one expect to happen when scammers are arrested and extradited? Nothing but revenge, reprisal, and bloodletting.
Monica Simpson
Kingston 5
monicasimpsonbrown@yahoo.ca