SPANISH TOWN, St Catherine – The Spanish Town police have cracked an illegal overseas employment ring in which money was collected from seven unsuspecting females for non-existent jobs in St Maarten.

Manager of the illegal scheme, Hardy ‘Reech’ Elleston, 42, cane harvester operator of Inswood Estate, Spanish Town, pleaded guilty to the charge of fraudulent conversion when he appeared in the Spanish Town criminal court last week.

The court heard how Elleston allegedly promised two of the women hotel employment in St Maarten and collected $65,000 to purchase airline tickets. After pleading guilty, he threw himself at the mercy of the court and begged the judge not to send him to prison, promising to repay the money.

But senior St Catherine resident magistrate, Lorna Errar-Gayle was unmoved. She remanded him in custody to Friday, February 2, 2007 and ordered that his finger prints be taken by the police to determine if he had a criminal record.

Allegations related to the court by detective Corporal Keith Roach, are that between November and December, 2006, Elleston recruited a total of seven women to work in a St Maarten hotel, restaurant and laundromat.

He collected between $18,000 and $28,000 each from them and promised to have his lady friend in St Maarten purchase airline tickets for them to leave Jamaica on December 23, 2006.

However, no tickets came and the enraged women demanded their money back to no avail. Two of the women reported the matter to the police and on January 16 they accompanied the cops to Elleston’s workplace, where he was arrested and charged with fraudulently collecting $65,000 from them.

Roach told the court that the seven women who were conned in the scam had paid over a total of $125,000 to Elleston but five of them declined to give written statements.

Elleston admitted to the court that he had collected the money but that he had already sent it off to St Maarten by Western Union money transfer where the airline tickets would be purchased.

Pressed by the judge to produce the transfer receipt, he immediately changed his testimony and said his St Maarten contact had asked him to purchase something with the money he had collected.

At that stage, Errar-Gayle remanded him in custody and adjourned the hearing to Friday, February 2, when the matter will again be mentioned. She warned him to bring the $65,000 for restitution to the two complainants.