Remittance and call-centre employees have been making extra cash off Montego Bay's lottery scammers by selling the information on customers at prices as high as $15,000, THE STAR has been told.

Speaking with the newspaperyesterday, a Montego Bay resident made the disclosure after he said he overheard his neighbour scolding a child because the juvenile had seemingly misplaced his recently paid for 'contact list'.

"The man get wicked ova di yute," Jing-Bang* said. "Him a look everywhere fi the list and a get ruff pon de little bwoy a talk 'bout a 15 gran ($15,000) him jus pay fi it and him nuh mek nuh money off it yet. All now mi nuh know if him find it."

remittance agencies

In another situation, a reader emailed THE STAR from the United States, bemoaning that she would get frequent calls from scammers in Jamaica. The sad thing she noted was that these calls would only come in to her after she had used remittance agencies to send funds to her spouse here. The woman claimed that on one occasion, she sought to engage the scammer in a conversation. After telling the crook that she was really a Jamaican living in the States, she said he told her that he was only hustling and that an employee from the local remittance office in Jamaica gave him her contact information.

Senior managers from the agency mentioned by the woman dismissed the claims, however. The managers said that their system is "100 per cent secure" and customer information is shared with no one whatsoever.

It has long been said that unscrupulous persons in the remittance and telecommunication sectors have been at the heart of sourcing scammers with customer contact information in return for cash. This is an argument that Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Les Green, part of the Jamaican Operations Linked to Telemar-keting taskforce, says they are aware of.

conspiracy charge

However, the lawman said that they are yet to apprehend any such employee, whereas they have held scammers. He said such employees, if and when caught, would most likely be charged with conspiracy to defraud and possibly larceny charges.

ACP Green said investigations have revealed that scammers also get customer information from connection overseas. "There is an overseas link where contacts come into the country via mail from North America, South America, Canada and the UK (United Kingdom), " he said. "We have intercepted these packages before." He said these sets of contacts are used by scam artistes in other countries as well, North America and Africa being among them.

Green theorised that these particulars are leaked to scam artistes in those countries similarly to how it is reportedly done in Jamaica. He said it is not yet ascertain whether local scammers pay to have these overseas contact lists sent to them. He was unable to say how may such packages have been intercepted in recent times