Lottery scams are the single most significant contributor to the increase in murders in the St James parish in most recent years.
This startling revelation was made by Assistant Commissioner of Police Carl Williams as he gave a keynote address at a Cybercrimes Act awareness seminar at Iberostar Hotel in Montego Bay recently.
Williams was speaking the same day that police in Jamaica announced the arrest six people accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from United States citizens through a lottery scam.
Saturday’s statement from police says that one of the men had more than US$60,000 in an account believed to belong to the victims. Police also seized computers, information on the lottery scam and lists of US victims, with their addresses and other personal information.
The arrests came after police contacted a US victim they say lost $120,000 through the scam. In the first instance, a man and a woman were arrested about Thursday afternoon after the man went to a financial institution to retrieve money from a United States-currency account. In the second instance, four persons, including two women, were arrested by police Friday afternoon.
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