WHILE on a business trip training law enforcement officers, Trinidadian forensic auditor Stephon Grey was stunned when authorities contacted him about being listed in suspected human trafficking and extortion cases spanning Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Spain.

Fortunately for him, investigators examined flight records, timestamps, and eyewitness statements and confirmed that he was not present in any of the countries at the time of the alleged offences. Instead, they found that his identity had been stolen, his phone number cloned, and he was being impersonated on five online dating platforms by traffickers looking to lure victims.

The suspected cases that prompted the authorities to contact Grey occurred over a span of weeks, with one incident reported in Trinidad on December 5, 2024, another in Spain on December 8, and the third was said to have occurred in Jamaica on January 1, 2025.

But it did not stop there. Grey told the Jamaica Observer that other incidents of blackmail and extortion were also reported, with seven confirmed victims identified.

“A Jamaican woman would have met someone purporting to be me; she quickly realised it wasn’t me, and she was very distraught. I think she was financially manipulated and catfished… Apparently, I was talking to her beforehand and she probably sent me US$1,000 or something,” said Grey.

“Then you had a Spanish man who lodged a legal complaint against [me], alleging deception and sexual assault before eventually dropping the charges when evidence proved that he was misled by the impersonator. The other incident in Trinidad is with a young lady who said she went to meet me in a mall parking lot and she realised it wasn’t me, and she jumped out of the car.

“In another one they had reported is a Trinidad professional who was blackmailed over the Internet, content gathered under false pretences, and I think another person said we were chatting well and exchanged some pictures and the [impersonator] attempted to blackmail them by saying, ‘I’ll post your naked pictures online if you don’t comply’, ” he told the Sunday Observer.

Grey shared that he was notified about the first incident in February of this year, the second incident in April, and the third incident involving the Jamaican national in March. Disturbed by the reports, he filed reports with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the police in Spain and Trinidad to clear his name and have the matter investigated further. “It was very stressful to know that this was caused by my impersonation. First, I thought I was hacked, but it was a mixture of hacking and impersonation. It turned out that it was seven incidents across the three countries, and we don’t know where else because once impersonated, you can’t really control it,” explained Grey.

He shared that he was registered on an online dating platform that did not securely protect his information.

“Investigators would have quickly told me that the duplication of a phone number is a very easy thing to do. One might ask if the person called if they would get me, no. If I give you my phone number, but it’s duplicated and I have not saved [your number], you are now a stranger to my phone; you are an unknown number, so when you call me, it goes straight to the hacker, it doesn’t come to me,” he said.

The Trinidadian forensic auditor said that in addition to him being impersonated, his bank accounts were compromised and he suffered financial loss.

“I had some online, what I thought was scamming in Jamaican ATMs [automated teller machines], but, in fact, it was online scamming using my card details, which can only be found in my Google account. I had six incidents of it in Jamaica on December 30th and 31st. I sent that to the Republic Bank investigative team [in Trinidad] and then in Spain, a bank card that I literally do not use, it had 28 incidents of money being spent while I was there. I think both [incidents] came up to about US$7,000,” he told the Sunday Observer.

He further stated that victims of the impersonators were also swindled out of more than US$50,000.

For Grey, the incidents were a real-life example of the types of modern technologies hackers are using to conduct their schemes. He stressed the need for more information and action to be taken regarding cybercrimes and human trafficking in the Caribbean region.

“In all of this, I just felt it was my duty to participate in the call for the awareness for the young ladies around the place, because it’s very easy [to get tricked], and it’s getting rampant…” said Grey.

He urged young women to remain vigilant and pay attention to warning signs that could indicate someone is a trafficker or has malicious intent. One red flag, he noted, is when an individual quickly tries to move the conversation off social media by asking for a phone number or alternative contact.

“What happens is that the more they spend time on social media talking to you, it is a greater chance that their IP address can be traced. A lot of these tricks people need to know, not just the high-level alert of, ‘It’s happening,’ and the use of big words. We need to know the grass roots and how they will fool you by pretending to be someone who is of some sort of [standard] so that the females can have trust and confidence and go out to meet the person,” he stressed, as he called on regional officials to take action.

Cybercrime is a growing concern in the Caribbean, with increasing incidents of cyberattacks, data breaches, and online fraud. A World Bank Group report on ‘Cybersecurity Economics for Emerging Markets’ published last year stated that Latin America and the Caribbean is the world’s fastest-growing region for disclosed cyber incidents, with a 25 per cent average annual growth rate in the last decade.

A Caricom Human Trafficking research project in 2019 further revealed a Caribbean-wide estimate that between 80,000 and 120,000 people are trafficked or smuggled through the Caribbean annually, with a significant portion being women and girls. It stated that false promises of love, employment, or migration opportunities are being used to lure victims.