Several people collect money from the same person over and over on any given day when business is at its peak

HUNDREDS OF thousands of US dollars are being wired through money transfer agencies on a daily basis to tricksters in the out-of-control lottery scam, better known in the second city as 'the game'.

The scammers tend to use branches of two agencies, The Sunday Gleaner understands, some of which, it appears, knowingly facilitate the practice for a percentage of the ill-gotten gains.

US$5,000 in a day

Scammers sometimes collect as much as US$5,000 or nearly half a million Jamaican dollars in a single day from these agencies.

"So inna two day, dem can collect up to $1 million," a source who works at one of the remittance agencies tells The Sunday Gleaner.

"What I see is dat certain time of the month, you will find it up and you will find it down," the source says - a pattern that likely reflects the period of the month when many of the victims, who are elderly, receive their pension payments.

Remittance agencies

During the earlier parts of the month, many scammers pour into the agencies to collect their funds, but business dwindles as the month closes.

"It's often easy to know who the scammers are because several people come to collect money from the same person over and over on any given day when business is at its peak.

"One person keep collecting off the same person and then you have other people who come and collect off of that same person too," the source tells us. "Because the whole scamming thing, you know, is one person to all 50 different man," the source adds.

"When a client send a money, say in my name, the client will give me the tracking number, but you find that Tom, Dick and Harry coming with the same tracking number because when they do get a chance to call the client, they give them the same tracking number," the informant says.

"And often when the scammers turn up to collect the funds, they are told by the company agent that the funds have already been received or the funds were not sent in their name, so they are not able to collect".

When some money transfer agencies begin treating the transaction of some scammers as suspicious, they use another route to collect their proceeds.

"They use the elderly people like them grandfather and them grand-mother. Sometimes, them caan even see fi write up the paper," the source says.

"You know is the sweepstakes (them come to collect) because the names that the youngsters collect off of is the same name the old

People dem collect off," The Sunday Gleaner source adds.

Rogue cops involved in the scam also use a similar method of collection, opting to have the funds wired in someone else's name instead of their own."

Avoiding suspicion

To avoid suspicion also, some scammers have the funds wired to relatives or friends abroad who then wire the money to them in Jamaica, the source explained.

"One is able to tell that the funds being received are connected to the scam because the receiver suddenly begins to receive funds of a similar value from a person who often shares the receiver's surname.

"In times like these when America and so much place dat a go through crisis them a send so much money come?"

In addition to that, the source points out the scammers sometimes make no secret of their illegal actions.

"You we hear them talk and say a dem bredda and a dem cousin them ask fi sen the money come gi dem," the source says.