(Jamaica Observer) Lottery scammers are living high on the hog, earning millions of Jamaican dollars a week and using Champagne to wash their cars in a boastful lifestyle reflecting the ease with which they come by their ill-gotten gains, police from the Organised Crime Investigation Division (OCID) have reported.
“They literally burn money. There is a competition to see who can burn the most money. They use Champagne to wash their cars. We know of one scammer who owns seven posh houses,” head of OCID, Senior Superintendent Fitz Bailey, said in an address to the Jamaica Observer Press Club last week.
Bailey also said that his team had seized a Lexus motor car that was in the possession of an 18-year-old.
Anyone armed with a 4G modem, a cellular phone and a computer phone jack can earn a whopping US$120,000 or J$10.2 million a week in the illegal venture commonly known as the ‘lotto’ scam.
It’s easy money for little effort on the part of the ‘scammers’, who the police say are generally young, tech-savvy, and freely spend their ill-gained wealth.
‘Lotto’ scamming, is a multimillion-dollar transnational crime. It involves local scammers who have close associates in North America — mostly in the United States — who supply the scammers with what is known as “lead lists”.
