At around five in the morning on August 5, 2026, agents from Jamaica's Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) moved on two apartments in Belvedere, St Andrew, and one in Perkins Estate, Kingston. Three people were arrested. MOCA's director of communications, Major Basil Jarrett, said criminals had been choosing upscale rental properties for the quiet cover they provide.
Lottery scamming has targeted elderly Americans for two decades and has long been treated as a Montego Bay problem. This raid came nine days after the National Security Council, chaired by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, declared it a threat to Jamaica's economic security and linked it to a fall in Global Services Sector employment from about 60,000 to around 40,000. This piece sets out how the scams work, what enforcement has achieved, where AI tools can speed it up, and who should act.
How a lottery scam works, and why it hurts the legal BPO industry
The method has barely changed. A caller, often in a rented house or apartment, tells a victim abroad that they have won cash, a car or a jackpot. To release it, the victim must first pay a processing fee, customs charge or tax. The money goes, and no prize comes. What has changed is the machinery: stolen identities, encrypted messaging and international money transfer networks.
On July 23, 2026, Operation Sweepstakes in Glendevon, St James, led to eight arrests under the Law Reform (Fraudulent Transaction) (Special Provisions) Act. Two of those arrested, Natalia Baker, 21, and Cruiz Amari Harding, 18, came from Rochester, New York, and from Georgia. Investigators seized lead sheets listing potential victims, debit cards, a high-end vehicle and phones. Recruiting from the country being targeted shows how organised and transnational these networks have become.
Scam houses use the same phones, headsets, scripts and floor plans as the legitimate call centres doing customer service, technical support and back-office work for foreign clients. A client deciding whether to trust a Jamaican vendor with customer data cannot always see the difference from outside, and that doubt is the cost to the legal industry.
What recent enforcement shows
Between December 10, 2025, and April 10, 2026, the Jamaica Constabulary Force's Anti-Lottery Scam Unit ran Scam Dun, Justice A Run across nine parishes: St James, Westmoreland, Hanover, Trelawny, St Ann, St Mary, Manchester, Portland and St Thomas.
| Result | Figure |
|---|---|
| Arrests | 27 |
| Formal charges | 11 |
| Vehicles seized | 13 |
| Mobile devices confiscated | More than 16 |
| Cash recovered | About JMD 2.4 million |
Sixteen of the 27 people arrested, 59 percent, were not formally charged. That gap does not have to mean a lack of will. Building a case that holds up in court means going through seized phones, tracing identity documents and following money, one investigator and one device at a time.
The rental market is part of the picture. On August 2, 2026, the Jamaica Observer reported that Roger Allen, second vice-president of the Realtors Association of Jamaica, had documented more than 20 cases where properties were rented and then relisted on booking platforms without the owner's consent, or where renters were pushed to pay outside the platform. Major Jarrett's warning about upscale rentals points to the same weakness: short-term lets with little checking of who is inside.
What the National Security Council decided
On July 27, 2026, the Council concluded that lottery scamming threatens both economic security and citizen security. It said scamming has raised the cost of doing business, weakened competitiveness and damaged Jamaica's reputation for digital services. Global Services Sector earnings now sit between US$700 million and US$900 million a year.
Holness said economic security is national security, and that Jamaica cannot become a leading nearshore destination while tolerating organised crime. The Council approved:
- modernised lottery scam legislation with tougher criminal penalties;
- closer alignment with international cybercrime and financial crime standards;
- more capacity for intelligence, investigation, prosecution and asset recovery;
- tighter regulatory oversight of the Global Services Sector.
The industry is moving too. On July 7, 2026, the Global Services Association of Jamaica (GSAJ) asked Yoni Epstein, founding chairman and chief executive of itelCX, to become president. He has set a target of recovering 10,000 of the lost jobs and up to US$1 billion in additional foreign-exchange earnings, and argues the sector must adopt AI to raise efficiency and move workers into higher-value roles.
One caution on the numbers. The fall from 60,000 to 40,000 jobs has more than one cause. Automation, including AI handling simple customer contacts, and shifts in post-pandemic demand have also cut call centre work. Scamming damages the sector's reputation, but fixing it alone will not bring all 20,000 jobs back.
The Core Argument
Manual investigation alone will not repair the sector's reputation. The tools the legitimate industry needs to compete, such as transaction analysis, call-pattern detection and document verification, are the same tools that separate it from the criminal networks and speed up cases against them.
Four places AI tools can speed up enforcement
Banks, telecoms carriers and police forces elsewhere already use each of these.
1. Transaction and money-trail analysis
Scam proceeds move through transfer networks, change currency and end up in vehicles and property, the pattern investigators found in the Scam Dun cases. Anomaly detection models, standard in large banks, flag unusual speed and structure in transfers as they happen. That gives the Financial Investigations Division (FID) an earlier start on asset recovery.
2. Call-pattern analytics
A licensed contact centre and a scam house both make outbound calls, but volume, duration, time of day, destination and script repetition differ at scale. Models trained on those patterns can help carriers and regulators flag suspicious calling for investigation. The same data lets compliant GSAJ members show a client they are clean.
3. Faster digital forensics
Forensic extraction and review tools can pull data from seized phones, cross-reference identity data, transaction records and contacts, and put the relevant material in front of an investigator. This is where the gap between 27 arrests and 11 charges can narrow. Every flagged item still has to be checked by a person before it goes into a case file.
4. Identity and rental verification
Document authentication tools help landlords and agents check that ID is genuine and consistent before handing over keys. A small check at signing removes the anonymous cover Major Jarrett described.
Why the rest of the region should care
Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and the Dominican Republic are courting the same outsourcing clients as Jamaica. A scam network exposed in one Caribbean country makes buyers more cautious about the region as a whole. Shared fraud detection standards, cross-border financial intelligence sharing and common identity checks for outsourcing firms would give every Caribbean nearshore destination the same baseline to point to.
Who should do what next
- GSAJ: publish a member compliance standard within six months covering staff identity checks, call recording and quarterly call-pattern reports, so members can show clients evidence in place of assurances.
- Telecoms carriers: sign a data-sharing agreement with the Anti-Lottery Scam Unit and pilot anomaly flags on international outbound calling from residential lines, where scam traffic is most likely to show.
- MOCA and the JCF: use forensic triage software on the backlog of seized devices and publish the arrest-to-charge ratio each quarter, so the effect is measurable.
- Banks, remittance companies and the FID: review transaction monitoring rules against the money patterns from recent cases and agree a fast channel for flagged transfers.
- The Realtors Association and landlords: adopt a standard screening checklist (government ID, references, payment only through the platform or a bank) and refuse cash or off-platform payments for short-term lets.
- Ministry of National Security: fund forensic analysts and tools for the FID and the Anti-Lottery Scam Unit as part of the Council's capacity package, with a target for charges per arrest.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which law are lottery scammers charged under in Jamaica?
The main one is the Law Reform (Fraudulent Transaction) (Special Provisions) Act, passed in 2013 and often called the Lottery Scam Act. It created specific offences, including possessing identity information and lead lists for fraud, which do not require proof that a victim lost money. Proceeds can also be pursued under the Proceeds of Crime Act, 2007. The National Security Council's July 2026 package promises tougher penalties on top of these.
How can someone abroad report a Jamaican lottery scam call?
In the United States, report it to the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and, if money was sent, to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Include the phone number, the dates and any payment details, because those are what investigators use to link cases. In Jamaica, reports go to the Jamaica Constabulary Force, whose Anti-Lottery Scam Unit handles these cases.
How can a Jamaican BPO operator prove it is legitimate to a foreign client?
Show independent evidence. Common standards are ISO/IEC 27001 certification for information security, PCI DSS compliance if the operator handles card payments, and SOC 2 reports for clients in the United States. GSAJ membership, documented staff background checks and call recording with quality review add to the case. Clients trust an audit report more than a sales presentation.
Is AI voice cloning making these scams worse?
It adds a new version of an old trick. Cheap voice cloning lets a fraudster imitate a relative or official from a short audio clip, and US authorities have warned about this in grandparent and emergency scams. The defence for families is simple: agree a code word, and call the person back on a known number before sending money. The same tools also help investigators, because a cloned voice leaves digital traces a live caller does not.
What should a landlord check before renting to a new tenant?
Ask for a valid government ID and a Taxpayer Registration Number, check at least one previous landlord or employer reference, and take payment only through a bank or the booking platform. Be wary of tenants who want to pay months in cash upfront, avoid the platform, or plan to move several people in who are not on the lease. If you suspect a property is being used for scamming, report it to the police and do not confront the occupants yourself.