Judge fed up with fraud flood

Senior Parish Judge Sanchia Burrell says she is growing weary of the number of fraud cases brought before the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.

"I am tired of it. We have too many of these matters coming to court where persons are stealing from their employers. Something needs to be done about it," the frustrated senior jurist said. She expressed her annoyance following allegations that a call centre agent, Ricki Rickards, stole US$50,024 (approximately J$7.8 million) from customers' accounts.

Richards, according to investigators, was employed as an associate at the call centre and had a unique login code that was used to access customers' accounts. It is alleged that between August 2021 and sometime in 2022, she gained access to the several customers' accounts and made transfers to an external PayPal account.

"So, the forensic evidence points to her because her sign-on is unique and all of her cyber-fingerprint is all over it," the senior jurist noted.

Prosecutors shared further that when Richards was arrested and cautioned, she said, "Offica, I changed the customers' sign-on, and I transferred money to my friend [name redacted] overseas PayPal account. I told my employer everything."

However, the judge was informed that the statement from the person Richards claims she spoke to is not on file.

"The High Court will have to deal with these matters; they can adequately deal with US$50,000. We cannot punish someone properly for US$50,000. That is a lot of money, well at least to me US$50,000 is a lot of money," Burrell said. The court heard that the customers whose accounts were compromised by the fraud, were already compensated by the call centre.

The matter was adjourned until January 16, 2025, for the file to be assessed by prosecutors and completed with outstanding statements. Richards is on $400,000 bail and reports to the police once weekly as one of the conditions.