MIAMI, USA – A St James man, who was extradited to the United States on charges relating to his role in a bogus lottery scheme targeting elderly Americans, made his initial appearance in a Miami federal court recently.

Greg Warren Clarke, 29, of Montego Bay, was charged in a six-count indictment with conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and international money laundering.

The disclosure was made by the US Department of Justice in a statement on Tuesday.

The indictment was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida in April 2019 and was unsealed upon Clarke’s extradition to the United States.

According to allegations contained in the indictment, Clarke and his co-conspirators sought to unlawfully enrich themselves through a fraudulent lottery scheme targeting the elderly.

Victims throughout the United States received mailings or phone calls in which they were falsely informed that they had won over US$1 million in a lottery and needed to pay fees to claim their winnings.

The modus operandi of the scheme included victims being instructed to send their money through wire transfers, the US Postal Service, and private commercial mail carriers to certain individuals, including Clarke’s cousin, Claude Anthony Shaw.

“Clarke and Shaw discussed plans to receive victims’ money over the phone and via text messages, and that at Clarke’s direction, Shaw received money from victims and sent the funds to Clarke in Jamaica,” the US Department of Justice’s release stated.

The victims, however, did not receive those earnings from the bogus lottery scheme.

Shaw was apprehended and charged for his role in the scheme, to which he pleaded guilty in the Southern District of Florida in February 2017.

He was sentenced to 36 months in prison.

In commenting on the extradition and subsequent charge of Clarke, Principal Deputy Attorney General Brian M Boynton, said: “The Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Branch is committed to pursuing criminals who defraud US consumers from abroad and to vigorously prosecuting them in federal court after they are apprehended.”

Boynton, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Division, lauded the Government of Jamaica “for extraditing him to the United States to face charges.”