Jamaican charged in $800m lottery scam

Jamaican Adrian Lawrence was last Friday arraigned in a United States of America federal court in Central Islip on a six-count indictment related to his alleged role in a multimillion-dollar lottery scam.

Lawrence, 31, was charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, in connection with a scheme to defraud US citizens. He was detained in Panama last month and extradited to the United States (US) on February 8 at the request of US authorities.

Breon Peace, United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Lawrence's arrest demonstrates his office's commitment to aggressively investigate and prosecute those individuals who "exploit our senior citizens for personal gain".

It is alleged that Lawrence and his co-conspirators preyed on dozens of elderly persons, contacting the victims by phone and email, spinning the lie that they had won a sweepstakes prize. It is alleged that he defrauded dozens of elderly victims of collectively more than US$5.6 million (approximately J$866.7 million) by wilfully misleading them to believe they had won a sweepstakes and needed to pay fees to release their winnings. After the victims paid the fees, they came to the realisation that the prizes they had been promised were non-existent.

"While elder fraud continues to be a persistent crime problem, today's action should serve as a reminder the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) will continue to do all we can to protect the vulnerable from those who seek to take advantage of them for their own greedy purposes," Michael J. Driscoll, the FBI assistant director in charge of the New York office, said on Friday.

The prosecution allege that at least 50 victims, whose average age was 81 years old, sent more than US$5.6 million to Lawrence and his co-conspirators. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.