03-15-2015, 01:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-15-2015, 01:27 PM by Westenders.)
There has been a massive crackdown on the lottery scammers over the last couple of years.
Western Union even temporarily closed all their offices in the St. Ann parish because it got so bad. WU are working closely with the JA govt on this. One of the measures was to introduce a requirement that a TRN number is required to collect money, so the govt could monitor incoming money, and see where it could be collecting taxes.
Food for thought here, but what if the crackdown has meant that crime has risen in negril, as scamming funded a lot of people, not just the fat cats. You used to see lines round the building at HiLo a couple of years ago, no exaggerating.
Also all the scammers in St.ann will have had to spread their collectors out into other parish offices.
The scammers used to pay a little to anyone they could get to collect the money from the WU, their neighbour, uncle, great grandmother, three legged dog.....and this is what the girl may have been doing who got shot.
The scams then brought an extra cycle of violent crime, that general tourists will probably not have been aware of...I myself have seen enough local men hanging in that car park waiting to rob one of these collectors. I know that for a first hand fact. They in turn would then be shot for robbing that money. I also know of quite a few of these shootings...as in know the person who is now dead..not heard it on the grapevine.
The drive by shooting I witnessed a couple of years ago was for this exact reason. Young Man face down in the dirt with a bullet hole in his cheek and his shin bone sticking out of his leg from another shot. He had robbed a collector ... And the next man in line came after him.
100 yards from negril police station...did they come out and investigate or even help?? What do you think!!
Last couple of visits I see a lot of the guys in the area and over in Hanover and Sav way who used to live life large on lottery scam profits...they are now broke, due to the crackdown..struggling and suffering as they say.
So what do some of these people do, who are used to getting foreign level money?? They try and get foreign level money a different way....and the beat goes on!!
What I can't seem to see in a lot of these alleged robberies though, except for a few is people talking about their own experience, rather than on the Internet drum..not a lot of specifics....and too many people starting their posts with "I heard"...and only a couple saying they made official reports to the police...no point talking to the tourist police. They work for guardsman so are just glorified security officers.
Great point about victims of crime should be reporting what happened to them to their countries embassy in jamaica, maybe that's that way, accurate crime recordings can be accrued that aren't subject to the usual corruption, then hopefully political pressure by our embassy's can be applied to the area politicians and policing team....and maybe things can improve....or maybe it will get worse.
I agree with RG that we should also be contacting the relevant organisations in negril...chewing the fat in here is not going to change much....the other guy reckons his site is per used by those authorities / organisations...no wonder they don't think there is any tourist concern....even TA has left a thread up!
Western Union even temporarily closed all their offices in the St. Ann parish because it got so bad. WU are working closely with the JA govt on this. One of the measures was to introduce a requirement that a TRN number is required to collect money, so the govt could monitor incoming money, and see where it could be collecting taxes.
Food for thought here, but what if the crackdown has meant that crime has risen in negril, as scamming funded a lot of people, not just the fat cats. You used to see lines round the building at HiLo a couple of years ago, no exaggerating.
Also all the scammers in St.ann will have had to spread their collectors out into other parish offices.
The scammers used to pay a little to anyone they could get to collect the money from the WU, their neighbour, uncle, great grandmother, three legged dog.....and this is what the girl may have been doing who got shot.
The scams then brought an extra cycle of violent crime, that general tourists will probably not have been aware of...I myself have seen enough local men hanging in that car park waiting to rob one of these collectors. I know that for a first hand fact. They in turn would then be shot for robbing that money. I also know of quite a few of these shootings...as in know the person who is now dead..not heard it on the grapevine.
The drive by shooting I witnessed a couple of years ago was for this exact reason. Young Man face down in the dirt with a bullet hole in his cheek and his shin bone sticking out of his leg from another shot. He had robbed a collector ... And the next man in line came after him.
100 yards from negril police station...did they come out and investigate or even help?? What do you think!!
Last couple of visits I see a lot of the guys in the area and over in Hanover and Sav way who used to live life large on lottery scam profits...they are now broke, due to the crackdown..struggling and suffering as they say.
So what do some of these people do, who are used to getting foreign level money?? They try and get foreign level money a different way....and the beat goes on!!
What I can't seem to see in a lot of these alleged robberies though, except for a few is people talking about their own experience, rather than on the Internet drum..not a lot of specifics....and too many people starting their posts with "I heard"...and only a couple saying they made official reports to the police...no point talking to the tourist police. They work for guardsman so are just glorified security officers.
Great point about victims of crime should be reporting what happened to them to their countries embassy in jamaica, maybe that's that way, accurate crime recordings can be accrued that aren't subject to the usual corruption, then hopefully political pressure by our embassy's can be applied to the area politicians and policing team....and maybe things can improve....or maybe it will get worse.
I agree with RG that we should also be contacting the relevant organisations in negril...chewing the fat in here is not going to change much....the other guy reckons his site is per used by those authorities / organisations...no wonder they don't think there is any tourist concern....even TA has left a thread up!