WHITE-collar criminals raked in more than $1.2 billion over the past six years, using methods that are increasingly more sophisticated and, in some cases, executed by organised networks of swindlers.

But while the Police Fraud Squad says it does a pretty good job of bringing confidence tricksters to book, the cops admit that at times the con artists are so ubiquitous that detectives tracking them feel almost overwhelmed.

“Just about everybody – the common man who works on the construction site, the person who sits in his lofty office, both government employees and private sector employees – do it,” head of the Fraud Squad deputy superintendent Fitz Bailey told the Sunday Observer.

“It’s really widespread. It goes beyond the social divide, really.” The term white-collar criminal is often reserved for offenders who extract money from unsuspecting victims via non-violent means.

And no one, it appears, is off limits to the confidence tricksters. Banks, car dealerships, hardware stores, swimming pool equipment companies, even funeral parlours are preyed upon by swindlers who often use fraudulent cheques to carry out their deception.

Bailey’s investigations have uncovered that the con artists run the gamut of intelligent, college-educated persons often highly skilled in printing and computer technology to the unsophisticated common thief.

Offences range from forgery to embezzlement, obtaining money by false pretense to identity theft, fraudulent obtaining of Tax Registration Numbers (TRNs), to credit-card and lottery fraud.

And many of the operations, the police have found, are highly organised.

According to DSP Bailey, a fraud investigator for 17 years, some people operate a network with an hierarchical structure which has a man at the top who hardly touches anything; he basically only gives instructions.

Below him is the person who is responsible for establishing the contacts or acquiring the various materials necessary to carry out the fraud.

In one of the rings busted by the Fraud Squad, Bailey said the police arrested 20 persons at one location who were caught in the act.

“We held them with cheques,” he said. “What they would do on a particular day is to meet at a location, usually a bar, a club or a guest house where they would rent rooms, and there they would give the instructions. And the foot soldiers would go to the banks where they would present IDs.”

“For example, say a big construction project is going on. They would dress in construction clothes and have construction company IDs and they would go to banks and naturally the bank (staffers) would assume that these persons are construction workers.”

The tricksters also turn up at businesses near closing time, making it near impossible to verify the cheques they present.

“We have had situations where, even when persons (from business places) call in to banks to verify cheques and they get responses from the institutions, the ‘responses’ turn out not to be genuine, as the calls were intercepted,” said Bailey, adding that a cambio dealer had been conned in this manner, having looked up the issuing bank’s phone number himself and speaking with someone claiming to be an officer of the bank.

“This has happened on a number of occasions. So, even the process of verification by telephone can be very risky,” said Bailey.

“It speaks to the sophistication of these guys.”

According to police data, 2003 was the most low key for reported cases of fraud, 236 cases, since the turn of the decade, but it was also by far the most lucrative year for swindlers, raking in some $652 million.

That year’s take eclipsed the combined amounts defrauded in all the other years between 2000 and 2005, amounting to $565.6 million.

Within that period, the police investigated a total of 1,877 fraud cases – an average of 313 per year.

But DSP Bailey believes the real haul taken in by white-collar criminals each year is considerably higher than that reported to the police.

“Some companies prefer not to report it in order to protect their image,” he told the Sunday Observer.

But the embarrassment, the policeman said, is a small price to pay for recovering the heavy sums that the tricksters often get away with.

Bailey was particularly keen to alert the public to a particular scam whose victims are sophisticated business owners and intellectuals, but which has proven very lucrative for its perpetrators.

The con begins with a man telephoning a company and identifying himself as, say, calling from England. He arranges to send by telegraphic transfer, money for goods he orders from the company, and requests the account number. He sends the money for the goods he has ordered, and calls to confirm whether the money was in fact lodged to the account.

He later sends a letter by fax with a British fax number at the top confirming the transaction.

“Then he will call back to say that he lodged or wired in excess of the agreed amount of money,” said DSP Bailey.

He then requests of the business person the transfer of the excess money to another account, or that the supplier prepares a manager’s cheque which someone will collect.

“Later, his cheque turns out to be a forgery,” said the fraud detective.

“This is very widespread. Prominent lawyers have been burnt by this, non-governmental organisations, also.”

Another source gave this example:

A well-known Kingston lawyer appeared in court recently, defending a man accused of fraud. The accused had not lived up to his obligations to his lawyer. So with the verdict a day away, the lawyer insisted on his fee of $50,000.

His client, who was on bail, assured him that he would borrow the money from his credit union that day and pay the fee.

Later, he presented the lawyer with a cheque for $80,000 drawn on a credit union account, explaining that he had got $30,000 extra for himself as he was out of funds, and asked that the lawyer give him a cheque for the $30,000 difference.

The lawyer obliged.

As it turned out the defendant was freed of the fraud charge the following day.

A few days later the lawyer discovered that the $80,000 cheque was a forgery.

A university lecturer who was conned of $500,000 was more fortunate.

He had advertised an apartment for rent, and was contacted, purportedly by a man from overseas, who called to say he wanted to rent it for a relative who was to enter university here. They agreed on the rent.

The man wired the funds and the lecturer’s bank confirmed that money had been sent. The prospective ‘student’ even dropped in on the lecturer at his office.

The man from overseas called back to say he had sent money in excess of the sum agreed and asked that the extra be transferred to another account. The lecturer complied, transferring in two transactions, more than $500,000 from his account, only to realise later that the ‘tenant’ had lodged a forged cheque.

In this case, however, a Fraud Squad investigation resulted in an arrest, and the court subsequently ordered that the bank repay the lecturer his money.

Meantime, the police are now finding that as the scams grow more sophisticated, the equally problematic cases of identity theft are increasing.

“It is very, very prevalent in Jamaica now,” said Bailey.

The stolen identities are used as cover to commit fraud, but the police also say that identities are stolen simply because the victim’s life might be more attractive.

“A person may have better qualifications than you; you want a job, so you take on their identity and seek employment,” he said.

The deputy superintendent notes that the laws are adequate to police fraud in all its variations, but feels the prescribed punishment is insufficient to deter tricksters, saying lawmakers need to revise the prison terms, upwards.

Bailey, to make his point, compared one of his cases where the offender who stole $10 million was sent to prison for six months, versus the man who, several years ago, was given three years for stealing eight mangoes.

The penalties, he said, are just not sufficient to deter the perpetrators of what he described as a relatively ‘safe’ crime.

As a result, the number of cases are trending up.

“Put it this way – white-collar crime is a safer way to get illicit money,” said Bailey.

“Why do you need to rob a bank when you have easier ways to defraud banks? The risk factor is less, there is no danger of being killed, no danger of any confrontation with the police or security personnel, so it is much easier,” he said, “less stressful.”

williamsl@jamaicaobserver.com