Caribbean Heads of Government and the region’s law enforcement institutions could come under greater pressure to pay attention to what a high-profile US integrity ‘watchdog’ institution has cited as an apparent increase in what we in the region describe as scams but which are more widely known as fraud schemes.
It would appear that the US-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) a Washington, DC think tank that pays attention to illicit financial flows, corruption, illegal trade and money laundering has picked up on indications that these kinds of crimes are becoming more prevalent in the Caribbean.
GFI, in its most recent report titled Financial Fraud in the Caribbean is asserting that financial fraud has now made a deep footprint in the region which, according to a Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) report, involves “potentially billions of dollars in illicit proceeds each year” adding that the practice “impacts the economic security of countries and the region as a whole,” and generates a “certain level of associated violence”.
CMC says that the GFI probe examined “the prevalence and dynamics of financial crime, analyzed the actors and facilitators involved, the methods of contact used by perpetrators, and the channels utilized to move the associated proceeds. The probe also reportedly “assessed current policy and law enforcement responses.” Five countries in the region, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago were used to assess the contexts of these practices.
The report quotes the GFI’s President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Cardamone as saying that “fraud, like other crimes, is a continuously evolving phenomenon that reacts to local, regional, and international developments…The public and private sectors, as well as the region’s citizens, must be alert and responsive to the dynamics of long-standing and nascent fraud schemes,” he added.
Scams/fraud schemes are believed to be rampant at various levels of Caribbean society, ranging from what are widely described as street hustles to ‘big time’ scams that involve persons of power and influence. Back in April this year, British Virgin Islands former Premier Andrew Fahie was apprehended in a sting operation and charged with conspiring to import drugs into the United States.
According to the report, the most common fraud types in the Caribbean include advance fee frauds, specifically lottery/prize scams, online shopping scams, and romance scams, as well as pyramid and Ponzi schemes.
There have been instances in the Caribbean where law enforcement has been accused of facilitating such schemes.
