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S. HRG. 113–806 

876–SCAM: JAMAICAN PHONE FRAUD TARGETING 

SENIORS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

WASHINGTON, DC 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013 

Serial No. 113–2 

Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

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SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING 

BILL NELSON, Florida, Chairman 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

ROBERT P. CASEY JR, Pennsylvania 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

JOE DONNELLY Indiana 

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

ORRIN HATCH, Utah 

MARK KIRK, Illinois 

DEAN HELLER, Nevada 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

KIM LIPSKY, Majority Staff Director 

PRISCILLA HANLEY, Minority Staff Director 

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CONTENTS 

Page 

Opening Statement of Ranking Member Susan M. Collins ................................. 1 

Statement of Chairman Bill Nelson ....................................................................... 3 

PANEL OF WITNESSES 

Panel 1 

Kim Nichols, Daughter of Jamaican Phone Scam Victim .................................... 5 

Sonia Ellis, Daughter of Jamaican Phone Scam Victim ....................................... 16 

William L. King, Jr., Chief Deputy, York County, Maine, Sheriff Office ........... 23 

Robert G. Romasco, President, AARP; Accompanied by Doug Shadel, Washington State Director ........................................................................................... 35 

Panel 2 

Shawn Tiller, Deputy Chief Inspector, U.S. Postal Inspection Service ............... 56 

Vance R. Callender, Operations Chief for Mexico & Canada, U.S. Immigration 

and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, Department 

of Homeland Security .......................................................................................... 75 

Phil Hopkins, Vice President of Global Security, The Western Union Company ....................................................................................................................... 83 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED WITNESS STATEMENTS

Kim Nichols, Daughter of Jamaican Phone Scam Victim .................................... 9 

Sonia Ellis, Daughter of Jamaican Phone Scam Victim ....................................... 19 

William L. King, Jr., Chief Deputy, York County, Maine, Sheriff Office ........... 25 

Robert G. Romasco, President, AARP; Accompanied by Doug Shadel, Washington State Director ........................................................................................... 38 

Shawn Tiller, Deputy Chief Inspector, U.S. Postal Inspection Service ............... 59 

Vance R. Callender, Operations Chief for Mexico & Canada, U.S. Immigration 

and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, Department 

of Homeland Security .......................................................................................... 77 

Phil Hopkins, Vice President of Global Security, The Western Union Company ....................................................................................................................... 85 

Letter dated March 4, 2013, from John Ricci to Chairman Nelson .................... 100 

ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS FOR THE RECORD 

Government of Jamaica Statement to the Special Committee on Aging ............ 106 

Statement by the Hon. Peter Bunting M.P., Minister of National Security 

(Jamaica) on the presentation to Parliament of the Law Reform (fraudulent 

transactions) (special provisions) Act, 2013 ....................................................... 111 

The Law Reform (fraudulent transactions) (special provisions) Act ................... 121 

The Law Reform (fraudulent transactions) (special provisions) Act, full text .... 123 

Government of Jamaica Anti-Lottery Scamming Activities Brief 2012–2013 .... 137 

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876–SCAM: JAMAICAN PHONE FRAUD 

TARGETING SENIORS 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013 

U.S. SENATE, SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:14 p.m., in Room 

562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Bill Nelson, Chairman 

of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Nelson, Blumenthal, Donnelly, Warren, Collins, and Ayotte. 

Chairman NELSON. The meeting will come to order. I am going 

to break all tradition and have our Ranking Member give the first 

opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SUSAN M. COLLINS 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. That is 

typically gracious of you, and let me start by thanking you for holding this very important hearing. It has been a wonderful partnership that we already have and I think that this hearing is really 

important. 

I also want to begin my remarks by thanking all of our witnesses 

who are here today, not only for appearing before our committee, 

but also for the assistance that you have provided to us in understanding the scope of the Jamaican phone scam and what could be 

done to combat it. 

Two of the witnesses have made the journey from Maine to tell 

their stories, Kim Nichols, who knows firsthand the heartbreak of 

this sophisticated scam because her own father fell victim to it, and 

Chief Deputy Sheriff Bill King from York County, Maine, who is 

the leading expert in the law enforcement community and has 

worked nonstop to shut down this scam. 

I also see in the audience representatives of FairPoint Communications, including the Maine State President, Mike Reed. 

FairPoint deserves much credit for bringing the Jamaican phone 

scam to my attention. I also want to salute the company for their 

efforts to alert the public. 

But, most of all, I want to thank the Chairman for agreeing to 

hold this hearing. This committee has a great history of working 

together in a bipartisan fashion to bring to light the scams and 

swindles targeting our nation’s senior citizens. I suspect that the 

Jamaican phone scam is one of the worst. 

To most Americans, Jamaica is a tropical paradise, an island of 

lush green mountains and white sand beaches set in the clear blue 

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waters of the Caribbean Sea. We have all seen those ads, full of 

gorgeous scenery and upbeat music, calling Americans to come and 

feel the spirit of Jamaica. Millions of Americans have accepted that 

call, including 1.2 million last year alone. These tourists spend billions of dollars annually, money that is critical to the Jamaican 

economy, in pursuit of their dream vacations. 

But beneath the Jamaica of those enticing ads and the tourist 

dreams lurks another Jamaica, one that brings nightmares to elderly Americans targeted by Jamaican criminals intent on swindling them out of their life savings. Every day, sophisticated Jamaican con artists place an estimated 30,000 phone calls to the 

United States in pursuit of their elderly victims. 

The swindle usually goes like this. The scammer calls to tell the 

victim that he or she has just won millions in a lottery or a sweepstakes or a brand new car and all they have to do is to wire a few 

hundred dollars in up-front processing fees or taxes and their 

winnings will be delivered. Often, the criminals will tell their elderly victims not to share the good news with anyone so that it will 

come as a surprise when the family finds out. 

Well, of course, no such winnings are ever delivered because no 

such winnings exist. The elderly winners get nothing but more 

phone calls, sometimes 50 to 100 calls per day, from scammers demanding more and more money. Behind those calls is an organized 

and sophisticated criminal enterprise overseeing boiler room operations in Jamaica. Indeed, the money scammed from the victims 

helps to fund organized crime in that island nation. Criminals once 

involved in narco-trafficking have found that these phone scams 

are both more lucrative and safer. 

Expensive lead lists identify potential victims. Satellite maps are 

used to locate and describe their homes to make it appear that the 

caller is familiar with the community. Elaborate networks for the 

transfer of funds are established to evade the anti-fraud systems 

of financial institutions. 

To keep the money coming in ever-increasing amounts, oftentimes, the impostors adopt a variety of identities. Some spend 

hours on the phone convincing the seniors that they truly care for 

them, that, indeed, they are in love with them. Victims who resist 

their entreaties begin receiving calls from Jamaicans posing as 

American government officials, including local law enforcement, the 

FBI, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of 

Homeland Security. They ask for personal data and bank account 

numbers so that they can solve the crime. These Jamaican 

scammers are masters of manipulation, playing to their victims’ 

fears and emotions until they have drained them of every dime. 

Some of my own constituents have lost more than $100,000 to 

these scams. Others have lost their homes, their cars, their financial independence, not to mention their security and their dignity. 

Even then, the con artists continue to pursue their prey with a 

heartlessness that is difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend. 

Just listen to this actual recording of a Jamaican phone scammer 

and an elderly Maine victim available to us courtesy of FairPoint 

Communications. 

[An audio recording was played.] 

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That is what we are talking about. That is how bad this scam 

is. That is how heartless the perpetrators are. And that is just one 

phone call to one victim. It is the tiniest tip of a giant iceberg that 

ought to scandalize the people of Jamaica. 

Incredibly, though, some in Jamaica embrace this scamming culture and even celebrate it. Last year, two of Jamaica’s leading rap 

artists released a song with lyrics saying that the scammers are 

stars and the money they steal is reparations. 

The new government in Jamaica has finally passed some new 

laws targeting the scammers, but I am deeply troubled that it has 

taken Jamaica so long—years—before getting serious about this 

problem. For far too long, Jamaican authorities turned a blind eye 

to this fraud, which was illegally bringing an estimated $300 million annually to their economy. 

I am also troubled by the lack of an aggressive and coordinated 

effort on the part of U.S. Federal law enforcement officials to protect our nation’s most vulnerable senior citizens. Our parents and 

grandparents worked hard their entire lives and saved for retirement. They should not be targeted by criminals who want to rob 

them of their hard-earned savings. 

While I believe that our Senate hearings will increase public 

awareness of these schemes, it is also critical that governments at 

all levels and across international boundaries work together to shut 

down these con artists before their sophisticated scams exploit yet 

another trusting senior citizen. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you so much for holding 

this important hearing. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BILL NELSON, CHAIRMAN 

Chairman NELSON. Well, there you have it. That is an excellent 

summary. I participated in one of those conversations yesterday 

and heard the relentless schmoozing that went on, and then the 

schmoozing turned into aggressiveness, and that is what happens 

to vulnerable seniors. 

I have talked to the Jamaican Ambassador. One of the things 

that we want to do—and I will be visiting with the Attorney General—we want to see somebody indicted, and then, when I pressed 

the Jamaican Ambassador, we want to see them extradited to the 

United States. That will have a chilling effect on a number of these 

people who think that they are bulletproof. 

What Senator Collins said is true, and this is just one type of 

scam. Often, we find where scams are going on, the street crime 

actually goes down. The drug trade actually goes down. We had a 

similar—another type of scam, not necessarily targeted at seniors, 

that was in Tampa and Miami, stealing people’s identity and filing 

false income tax returns to get the income tax refunds. The local 

police department said, it is incredible how all the B&Es went way 

down, the other street crimes, because they had found that they 

can use a laptop instead of a crowbar. 

Here, we have the use of technology, getting these lists so that 

they have a target list of calling vulnerable seniors and then preying on that vulnerability. There is an obligation in society that we 

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sibility here in this committee to elevate this issue and to try to 

do something about it. 

Now, there are an increasing number of complaints that are coming to the fore. This is just going to increase. No telling how many 

billions of dollars. The FTC believes that up to 90 percent of the 

scams are never reported because the victims are embarrassed or 

they are afraid. 

And so these tragic stories that you will hear today—you will 

hear stories like Stuart Childers, a Central Florida resident whose 

mother ended up on an FBI watch list for money laundering because she wired nearly $300,000 over an 18-month period in an attempt to claim her prize. That is so sad. 

And Neal Hines of Gainesville, his father lost $100,000 in an effort to receive what was reported to be the prize. They use the 

same number, Senator Collins, two-and-a-half million dollars. That 

is what happened to the constituent in Gainesville. That is what 

happened on this call that I participated in yesterday. 

Last week, in Miami, I talked to a financial planner, David 

Treece. He had to sue his own client in order to get a guardianship 

that could stand in the place of her because she was so vulnerable 

to this attack after she had already spent $400,000 in fees in Jamaica, and she had been seduced to think she was going to get $7 

million of winnings. And we have on the panel Sonia Ellis to tell 

about her mother, a Siesta Key resident, who lost over $64,000 to 

these fraudsters. 

And so what makes these lottery scams different from other 

fraudulent schemes that are targeting the elderly? Well, they target the most vulnerable and then they are relentless. You should 

have heard on the phone yesterday. I am sitting there participating 

in this call. The call is hung up and the phone is ringing again, 

and again, and again. 

One elderly victim was called 59 times in a single day by the 

same scammer. But the harassment does not stop there. These are 

con artists. They threaten. Susan told you about posing as law enforcement, in one case, even posing as the FBI. By the way, there 

is an indictable crime right there, and I will be visiting with the 

Attorney General about that. 

And so this kind of sophisticated scam needs to be put out into 

the open and we need to see if we cannot limit it. 

So we have got this Joint Task Force that is going on. We want 

to go beyond that Jamaican-U.S. Task Force, and we will hear 

about that today. So we have got this star-studded panel. 

First, we are going to hear from Kim Nichols. She will share the 

story of her father, a retired airline pilot from New Hampshire. 

Then we are going to hear from Sonia Ellis. She is going to share 

the story of her mother, who sent many thousands of dollars to the 

fraudsters. 

We are going to hear from the sheriff, Sheriff King from York 

County, Maine. He spent 26 years in Federal law enforcement. He 

has become an expert on the Jamaican lottery scam and he has 

been on dozens of cases. 

And then we are going to hear from Robert Romasco, President 

of AARP. He served on the board since 2006 and he is accompanied 

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by Doug Shadel. Dr. Shadel is the State Director of Washington’s 

AARP and is a leading expert. 

So, Ms. Nichols, let us start with you. And, each of you, your full 

statements are put in the record. If you will give us about five minutes, we are going to go right on down the line, and then we will 

open it up to questions. Ms. Nichols. 

STATEMENT OF KIM NICHOLS, DAUGHTER OF JAMAICAN 

PHONE SCAM VICTIM 

Ms. NICHOLS. Good afternoon, and thank you, members of the 

Senate Committee on Aging, Chairman Nelson, and Senator Collins, for making it possible for me to be here today to tell my dad’s 

story. 

My name is Kim Nichols and I am from Maine. I am a mother 

of twin 14-year-old boys. I am the wife of a military pilot. And I 

am the daughter to my father, Bill, from New Hampshire, who I 

never thought I would tell you was a victim of a scam. But I sit 

here today and he is a victim. 

He is a retired Navy and commercial airline pilot who lost over 

$85,000 to the Jamaican lottery scam. It began with a phone call 

from an 876 area code and ended with a pair of scissors and two 

police officers standing in his living room. If you think that sounds 

crazy, it is because it is. 

For my dad, he received a call from someone saying they were 

from Publishers Clearinghouse, the promise of a new car and a 

large amount of money, and the chance to help the people that he 

loved. All he had to do was send a $500 transfer fee. The one 

scammer quickly became more: The reassuring people from the 

Lottery Commissioner’s Board, Better Business Bureau representatives, Customs agents, IRS, and FBI agents who provided local job 

descriptions and even badge numbers. 

Of course, there was Diane, the secretary, who was the company 

secretary from MegaBuck who was supposed to be the one, the 

company that handled the prizes. She spent lots of time getting to 

know my dad on the phone, getting him to trust her and taking advantage of his kind and generous nature. Her phone calls would reassure him in between all the phone calls that came from the other 

male callers, who pressured, harassed, yelled at, and scared my 

dad into sending checks to various people all over the country. 

They instructed him to withdraw cash and purchase GreenDot 

cards from the local Wal-Mart. He would load the cards with cash 

and then call into a phone number and scratch the PIN number off 

the back and read the card, or the PIN number for them to access 

the money. I found $40,000 worth of GreenDot cards so far. 

They would yell at him while he was on the phone standing in 

the bank in line, on his cell phone, as one of the bank managers 

told me later. She said, he would be shaking so violently from head 

to toe, he could barely fill out the withdrawal slip. The cash would 

then be sent to a scammer or another victim who was unwittingly 

becoming an accomplice in the scam. 

We knew nothing of it as first, as the scammers convinced my 

dad to keep it a secret, as Susan Collins said, and let it be a surprise. I knew at one point that he had gotten a phone call and a 

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promise of a car, but he reassured me that he had gotten his deposit check of $500 back. 

I did not know how bad it was until in April, when he was supposed to have some surgery. I was getting ready to go down to take 

him to the hospital, and two days before I got there, his phone 

number had been changed. I could not reach him. He called, horrified that his phone number had been changed without his knowledge. 

I called FairPoint Communications, who handles his phone service, and they explained to me that this is how the scam works. I 

remember thinking it could not be as bad as they possibly said that 

it was until I got down there, and after we got him home from the 

hospital. His phone would ring off the hook with him. They would 

be harassing and yelling at him. He was begging and pleading with 

them that he was in pain, he had just had surgery, and he could 

not possibly drive anywhere to go get the money to send them. 

I begged and pleaded with him not to talk to them anymore or 

to Diane. He said to them that he only wanted to talk to Diane and 

he told me that she was not like them. He trusted her. He would 

end his phone call saying, ‘‘I love you,’’ not in a romantic way but 

more of a companionship way, because he lived alone. 

They seemed to have a strange hold on him. It was not really my 

dad anymore. It almost seemed like he was brainwashed. 

Chairman NELSON. Mm-hmm. 

Ms. NICHOLS. I left without being able to help him at that point, 

and I could not get him to promise that he would stop talking to 

them, and especially Diane, and I really did not know how much 

money he had lost. 

In late May, at my sister’s wedding in Cape Cod, I saw how 

awful my dad looked. He had lost 20 pounds since I saw him in 

April. He was still yelling at people on his cell phone. He was barely eating, and he was very confused. 

I ended up at his house in New Hampshire and collected everything I could find having to do with the scam—the GreenDot cards, 

the mail receipts, the letters that they had written to him trying 

to get him to make good on checks that they supposedly never received. I found lots of pieces of paper with names and numbers and 

addresses scrawled on them. 

A scammer from Jamaica contacted FairPoint and tried once 

again to have his phone number changed. He impersonated my 

dad, and FairPoint was able to route that call to Chief Deputy Bill 

King’s office, and they recorded it. The scammer was posing as my 

dad. He had his Social Security number and his personal information, his date of birth, to try to isolate him further. Just like Senator Collins said, they stop at nothing. 

I filed a self-neglect report on my dad with DHHS because I was 

afraid we would have to try to get conservancy, but I was told from 

lawyers that it would take months to do that. So I ended up having 

to call the police on my father. He refused—I wanted him to come 

to Maine, but he refused to leave. I called the police and asked 

them to come help me convince him to go. 

As he reached—he decided he wanted to try to call Diane one 

more time, and I begged him not to. As he reached to plug the 

phone in, because he had it unplugged at that time because his 

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phone was ringing between 85 to 100 times a day—he reached to 

try to plug the phone back in and I cut it with a pair of scissors. 

And then the police showed up and told my dad that he needed to 

either come and go get in the car with me and come to Bangor, 

Maine, or they would take him to the hospital to have a psychiatric 

evaluation done. That is how we got it to stop then. 

He decided to come with me, and at my kitchen table that night, 

we added up all of the receipts and went through all the paperwork. I handed my dad a calculator and he added up his lost 

amount, $85,000. He was stunned and silent. He really had no idea 

how much he had sent. 

We had an intervention the next day with the only people that 

gave me any help at the time, FairPoint Communications security 

team and Chief Deputy Bill King of the York County, Maine Sheriff’s Office. Even with that, the next day, my dad—I brought him 

home and he picked up the phone and called Diane and told her 

that if this was real, she would meet him at the post office with 

a check at noon. He went and waited and waited and then nothing. 

He returned home and called FairPoint with the final phone number, the contact information for Diane. 

Since then, my dad has lost two Social Security checks. They 

have called the local police department and the Post Office, trying 

to pose as a nephew trying to get back in touch with my dad. They 

are arrogant and they are clearly—they clearly know that they can 

continue without consequence. 

Throughout those six months, I made over 100 phone calls trying 

to get help from local police to Postal Inspectors. I called the FTC. 

I called the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office. I called 

the IRS and the FBI and the Attorney General’s Office. The responses were always the same. I got diverted to a prevention Web 

site or was told, ‘‘We do not handle those cases. We do not have 

jurisdiction in Jamaica,’’ or ‘‘There are just too many of them,’’ and 

‘‘Just get your dad to stop sending the money,’’ or ‘‘Tell him to hang 

up the phone.’’ 

No one would help. It was incredibly lonely, watching my dad’s 

life and everything he saved for unravel right before my eyes. I 

could not find anyone to help except his phone company and a 

Maine Sheriff’s officer. That just seemed ridiculous to me. 

This is not just a typical scam and it is not only the responsibility of the Jamaican government. It is our responsibility. Someone besides the phone company has to take this on. We have to investigate, prosecute, extradite, and be there for the victims and 

their families. Please do something, I beg you. 

You have no idea how horrible this is. Sonia and I understand, 

because we have been under that roof, and we understand. We 

have seen it and we have lived it and we know exactly how that 

feels. 

I am speaking on behalf of the thousands of people whose lives 

are ruined by this. These are our parents and our grandparents. 

We would never let this happen to our children. They are vulnerable and they need our help. I pray that you will not just give this 

lip service today. And please know that this has been going on unchecked for years. Nothing has been done on the ground and on the 

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Federal level for the victims and their families to stop this or to 

help them. That is why I am here. 

On behalf of my family, thank you for taking the time to hear 

my testimony and for giving this the careful consideration and action that this deserves. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Nichols follows:] 

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Chairman NELSON. And we are going to do everything in our 

power to make sure that there is action. 

And, unfortunately, a similar story from Ms. Ellis. 

STATEMENT OF SONIA ELLIS, DAUGHTER OF JAMAICAN 

PHONE SCAM VICTIM 

Ms. ELLIS. Good afternoon. I would like to thank Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Collins, and the Senate Special Committee 

on Aging for inviting me to speak at your hearing on Jamaican lottery scams. It is a privilege to be here. 

My mother’s story began on December the 8th, 2008, when she was randomly called and told she had won $4.5 million in a Las 

Vegas lottery. My mother was very excited, and she told her 

friends, who told her it was a scam. Luckily, they reported it to the 

property manager of where she lives. The next day, my mother 

sent $300 via Western Union. 

Over the next 13 days, my mother sent $25,500. I was made aware of this by the manager at Peppertree. I tried to stop a $3,000 

transfer to Indiana, but could not, from the Bank of America. The 

largest amount my mother ever sent was $19,500. However, I was 

able to get this back. From January the 5th to the 17th, 2009, my 

mother sent away another $10,850. 

I realized then that my mother was going to keep sending 

money, regardless of who spoke to her, so I flew down to Florida— 

I live near Toronto—on January 31, 2009. While staying with my 

mother, she continued to talk to the fraudsters. One day, she went 

to the bank, and she withdrew $8,000 from Bank of America, then 

deposited it into her Wachovia account. The bank manager saw her 

leave with all this cash and became very worried about her safety, 

so followed her to the Bank of Wachovia. 

I happened to be at the Peppertree office, and we got the call 

from the bank manager to the property manager saying, ‘‘Mrs. 

Goodwin has gone with $8,000 cash,’’ and so I was taken to 

Wachovia Bank. There, I met her in the bank manager’s office, and 

she had just deposited the $8,000 and then was proceeding to try 

and transfer that money. I then realized that I must take action, 

so I called the guardianship lawyer, and I set up an emergency— 

and I met him the next day—sorry—and he set up an emergency 

court hearing for a few days later, and the $8,000, I had prevented 

that from being sent. 

I delayed my return to Canada so I could attend an emergency 

Sarasota court hearing. I presented evidence of my mother’s involvement of the Jamaican scam and was granted a temporary 30- 

day guardianship. My mother was assigned a lawyer, but she refused to see him, so did not attend the hearing. The final financial 

guardianship was approved on March the 13th, 2009, four years 

ago today. 

My mother had previously revoked my Power of Attorney. Therefore, a legal guardianship, U.S. guardianship, was the only option 

I had to gain control over her financial affairs. The guardianship 

helped my mother send the very large amounts of monies that she 

had just been sending [sic]. 

The Jamaican fraudsters are extremely convincing, as Kim said 

and as you have seen on videos. One calling himself John Kent 

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talked to my mother several times a day for at least three years. 

My mother looked forward to his calls and felt a very special bond 

with him, and I would say that she felt she loved him. She even 

told him she looked forward to meeting him. These ruthless people 

would call my mother and tell her to expect calls at nine o’clock 

in the morning and four o’clock in the afternoon. So she delayed 

going out, or if she did go out in the afternoon, she would say to 

her friends, ‘‘I have to come back because I have a very important 

call,’’ and this went on for years. My mother stayed at home too— 

I said. Okay. The fraudsters isolated my mother this way, which 

is very common. 

They also coached my mother into believing, of course, that it 

was because of the guardianship that I had taken—and, of course, 

I was not in her good books—for not receiving the millions, and 

there were so many lies. There have been many difficult conversations, and I would not even want to tell you what we said over 

those times, but they were very, very difficult and hard to take. 

It took me until April 2009 before I could get control of my mother’s Canadian bank accounts, as they would not recognize the U.S. 

guardianship. As a result of this, my mother was able to send 

money to the fraudsters. Before returning to Canada, my mother 

gave the fraudsters her Canadian number because she was really 

determined to get her millions. If they did not call when she expected them to call, she would call them in Jamaica, and one 

monthly bill totaled $450. 

From December 2008 to July 2012, I estimate my mother tried to give—tried to give away—$92,000, but estimate the actual 

amount was $64,500 because I got some of that little bit of money 

back and was able to stop the transfer. So I estimate that. 

But then, even though I had the guardianship in place, I estimate that between February 2009 and July of last year, she was 

still able to send $47,000 away, and this happened because it was 

difficult to get the telephone companies, both in Canada and the 

U.S., to block calls from certain companies and certain area codes, 

because the only way I could block international calls was to block 

all international calls, and, of course, she was calling me in Canada 

and vice-versa, and so—and England. You know, we are English. 

She was also able to draw money from her bank accounts even 

though they had a limit on them, and so this was a very difficult 

situation. I would call the banks. I would say, ‘‘How can this happen?’’ Well, because she was in good standing with the bank over 

many, many years, the bank account was allowed to be overdrawn. 

I eventually had to stop her checking account and give her only a 

savings account, which could not be overdrawn. So I would put 

$100 in. She would take it out. I would put another $100 in so she 

could have money to spend. 

Another thing that she was able to spend money on was she was 

able to withdraw cash on her canceled Visa card, and this happened for a few months. And then, in the meantime, unbeknownst 

to me, she was actually sent a new Visa card, and so she all of a 

sudden had access to another Visa card, which I was not aware of. 

So, as you can appreciate, I found the last four-and-a-half years 

very difficult. I have contacted, like Kim, all those people she mentioned and anybody that I felt could give me any help. It was very 

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difficult. I often gleaned a lot of information from her friends, who 

she did not realize I was talking to, and I would try and get the 

information from them, because my mother would continue to tell 

me she was not sending any money, although I had evidence, because I had control of her bank accounts. 

So I guess, finally, the last thing I would like to bring to your 

attention is to the impact and stress that my mother’s involvement 

with the Jamaican lottery scam has had on our family. This situation has impacted not only my mother and myself, but my mother 

and her family and my mother and her grandchildren. Unless you 

have ever had to deal with this type of situation, you cannot imagine how hard it is to watch your loved one fall victim to the cruelty 

of these unknown individuals who really do not appear—as we 

know, they do not have any remorse for taking advantage of society’s most vulnerable people. 

For the four years, I watched my mother willingly give away part 

of her life’s savings and be convinced that those who have the love 

for her the most want nothing more than to love and to protect her, 

and this has just continued. To this day, I would say that my mother still really believes that if it was not for me and the guardianship, she would have her money, her millions. 

So the $4.5 million was the first check. The next one, I think, 

was maybe $17.5 million. I think there were three times, and three 

separate groups of people. And as we know, they get on the sucker 

list. Once Mr. John Kent stopped with her, then you would have 

another person picking up the pieces and trying to get a little bit 

of money, and so she was able to send small amounts of $100 and 

$500. Eventually, I had to even get Publix cards so she would not 

have too much cash, but she could not say she did not have any 

money for food. So, anyway. 

And I guess that is about it, then. Thank you for listening and 

being interested in my mother’s story, and I am really happy to be 

part of this and hope that my mother’s story and my continual involvement in this will help. I am going to certainly be communicating a lot of this with my Canadian friends and seeing what 

I can do. As my friends said, ‘‘You are a crusader, Sonia, so carry 

on with the show.’’ I will do my best. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ellis follows:] 

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Chairman NELSON. Thank you. 

Dan Rather is airing a piece where he has interviewed some of 

these fraudsters, and he says they act with the ultimate of arrogance. They laugh at their victims. And they laugh as they say that 

they will never be brought to justice. I discussed that with the Ambassador from Jamaica yesterday and he confirmed. 

Okay, Sheriff, tell us how you intersected with all of this. Tell 

us what you did. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM L. KING, JR., CHIEF DEPUTY 

SHERIFF, YORK COUNTY, MAINE, SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT 

Mr. KING. Certainly. Thank you. In late August 2011, the Sheriff’s Office received a complaint of an elderly woman in our community who had paid $100,000 in fees to collect a lottery. This case 

introduced us to the complex world of the Jamaican lottery scams. 

We found several criminals working in unison, using various 

techniques like friendship, religion, romance, and threats, with the 

sole purpose of separating her from her life savings. We traced the 

payments and found that most were made to people in the United 

States, some of whom were victims themselves and became unwitting facilitators of the crime, and others were complicit. Ultimately, 

we identified six people in Jamaica who received her money. One 

of those scammers was returned to Jamaica after serving time in 

Minnesota State Prison for murder. Each case we have encountered 

was similarly complex. 

It is easy to dismiss this crime because most people would not 

fall for it. Some question even if it rates as a crime at all, because 

people are willingly giving away their money. Others mock the victims for falling for it. 

I am told cognitive reasoning ability diminishes with age. I met 

a retired businessman who graduated from Yale who was actively 

involved in the scam. He lost his life savings and his house, but 

still waits every day for the oversize check and the balloons attached to a brand new BMW to appear while his wife lives in despair. 

Years ago, United States telemarketing companies set up shop in 

Jamaica to take advantage of the inexpensive labor rate. They conducted training sessions, teaching Jamaicans how to make cold 

calls, establish rapport, keep the person on the telephone, overcome 

objections, and create a fantasy. The newly trained telemarketers 

found fertile territory with seniors who grew up in a time when it 

was impolite to hang up on a caller. That, coupled with a national 

crackdown on drugs by Jamaican authorities, steered many criminal gangs toward lottery scamming. Also, the young Jamaican culture justifies scamming as reparations from the United States for 

perceived past misdeeds. 

The scam is convincing. When a wealthy doctor was skeptical 

after receiving a call, the scammer directed him to a Web site 

where he found his name blinking beside an unclaimed $2.5 million 

lottery prize. And the fees seem plausible. Prepaid taxes, processing fees, lawyer fees are the most common examples. Embarrassment is the scammer’s greatest ally because it silences victims. 

Some scammers profess love for the victims to ensure the money 

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keeps coming. A widow in Maine handed over $600,000 to a 

scammer who we believe feigned a romantic interest. 

During my research, I found a headline that read, ‘‘The Sun May 

Be Setting on the Jamaican Lottery Scams.’’ The article quoted an 

ICE agent who stated he had cases from Hawaii to Maine and estimated the losses at $30 million. The article reported that U.S. authorities are now involved and would put a stop to the scamming. 

That article was published in May 2009. Today, the estimates of 

losses are tenfold, $300,000 [sic], and the sun does not seem to be 

setting on the scams. 

In a seven-month period of time, FairPoint Communications, our 

local telephone provider, identified 186 victims. A local news station did a three-part series on the scams. The last day of the series 

allowed viewers to call in to report scams. We received 38 calls during the 30-minute segment. Unfortunately, 105 calls went unanswered at the end of the show because they were terminated. 

FairPoint organized news conferences, shot a Public Service Announcement, launched a Web site that provides information. As a 

result of Web site contacts, I have spoken to dozens of victims and 

their families from approximately 20 different States. All feel abandoned by law enforcement. 

We cannot place the blame of this scourge solely on Jamaica’s 

doorstep. Yes, the scams originate from Jamaica, but there are 

hundreds, if not thousands, of facilities operating and profiting 

within our own borders. 

And this is not just a financial crime. The stress caused by the 

scam accelerates a victim’s demise. I recently tried to contact some 

victims and was saddened to find that two had passed away, while 

others who were vibrant before the exploitation are now experiencing medical issues impeding their quality of life. 

And this will continue until these cases are investigated here and 

in Jamaica and laws are enforced and our extradition treaty is applied. I fear that when the national spotlight is off, the status quo 

will return, and the victims will continue to go unprotected. 

And I want to thank FairPoint for their continued support, the 

Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, who have donated money 

toward this effort, and also the many store and banking employees 

who have thwarted scamming before it actually started by contacting family members of potential victims. One of those victims 

happens to be my father, who was trying to send money to keep 

my son out of jail. My son was safe in Florida. 

And thank you, Chairman Nelson and Senator Collins and the 

rest of the committee for having this hearing today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. King follows:] 

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Chairman NELSON. Thanks, Sheriff. 

Okay. The AARP is trying to do something about it. They have 

sent with the U.S. Postal Service this kind of flyer out. It says, ‘‘If 

you have to send $250 to claim your prize, odds are it is a scam. 

Don’t risk it.’’ And we send out notices. They send out notices. The 

U.S. Postal Service is trying to get the word out. Do not answer 

the phone. When you answer the phone, hang up. But you have 

just heard the stories. 

Okay, Mr. Romasco. You are the head of the AARP. What do you 

think we ought to do? 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT G. ROMASCO, PRESIDENT, AARP; ACCOMPANIED BY DOUG SHADEL, WASHINGTON STATE DIRECTOR 

Mr. ROMASCO. Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Collins, Senators Donnelly and Warren, thank you very much for having us 

here today, and most importantly, thank you for raising the profile 

of this heinous operation. As Senator Nelson indicated, my name 

is Rob Romasco, and I am the President of AARP. 

We have been involved in this issue of financial exploitation of 

our older population for years. AARP and the AARP Foundation 

has been deeply involved in fraud prevention dating back to the 

mid-1990s. 

Since 2003, AARP and its research partners have completed five 

studies of lottery fraud victims. The most recent effort was in 2011, 

the National Victim Profiling Study, that surveyed 1,500 consumers from the general public and 700 fraud victims. This study 

showed that while consumer fraud can happen to anyone, some 

people are more likely to be taken in than others. Lottery fraud victims, for example, are more likely to be women who are over the 

age of 70, divorced or widowed, have less formal education, less income, and they may have more cognitive impairment than others 

their age. 

From a behavioral standpoint, our research has shown that lottery fraud victims are more likely to listen to sales pitches over the 

phone from unknown callers, read advertising solicitations that 

come through the mail and e-mail and are less likely to be signed 

up for the National Do Not Call List. 

AARP and its research partners have pursued three research 

questions. First, what persuasion tactics are used by these criminals to successfully scam the victims? 

Second, what is going on psychologically with victims that makes 

them vulnerable? 

And, third, is cognitive impairment a factor in fraud victimization? 

The research shows that specific persuasion tactics have been 

most frequently used, and we have heard dramatic testimony today 

that underscores that. They offer enormous wealth, using scarcity 

to create urgency, and fear to frighten the victims. And, as we have 

seen with the Jamaican lottery scam, fear has been used over and 

over again to literally scare older victims into handing over their 

money. 

AARP and Stanford have pursued research that tested the application of positivity theory to fraud. Positivity theory says that as 

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we age, we tend to focus on the positive events and ignore the negative events as a coping strategy. 

We also looked at cognitive impairment, and again, it is no secret 

that as we age, some of us experience diminished cognitive capacity. In 2009, AARP hired skilled geriatric social workers to go into 

the homes of lottery victims and give them a series of cognitive 

tests. Close to 80 percent were found to have some cognitive loss, 

which is a much higher rate than others of the same age. 

I want to emphasize, Mr. Chairman, that all three of these areas 

of research are in the early stages, and much more needs to be 

done to definitively determine why older people fall prey to fraud. 

While it is true that anyone can be taken in by this scam, 

profiling research has taught us that some people are more likely 

to be taken in than others. These profiles enable fraud prevention 

practitioners to direct information to those being targeted by the 

con artists. You have heard today; these are very sophisticated operations. This is not a one-off. They use computer technology, lists, 

and all the technology of direct marketing and contacts and persuasion. 

One example, however, is we have set up Fraud Fighter Call 

Centers operated by the AARP Foundation. There are currently 

centers in Seattle, Denver, and Charleston, West Virginia. In each 

center, older volunteers offer support, peer counseling, and referral 

information to individuals who have been victimized or who meet 

the profile of the vulnerable consumer. 

There have been two major studies of this program. The most recent was done in 2010 by Stanford University. The subjects of that 

study were lottery victims like those we have been discussing 

today. The researchers found that victims who have been counseled 

by Fraud Fighter volunteers were significantly more likely to resist 

future fraud attempts compared to those who did not have the 

counseling. 

Mr. Chairman, the impact of AARP’s prevention and counseling 

efforts would be greatly enhanced with increased funding and access to those lead lists the scammers have put together and law enforcement has been confiscating. Criminals are most successful targeting the most vulnerable when they use what is commonly 

known as these lead or target lists. The most vulnerable category 

of individuals are those who have been previously victimized and/ 

or who have been targeted by scammers. We could dramatically increase our impact on this problem if we could reach 200,000 of the 

most vulnerable population by accessing the lists that the law enforcement agencies have been seizing. 

Also very promising is our recent partnership with the United 

States Postal Inspection Service, which sends out millions of foreign lottery fraud warnings to older persons across the country. 

This month, the month of March, the Postal Service and AARP 

have launched an effort to warn millions of older Americans about 

foreign lottery fraud. The Postal Service is mailing 25 million postcards to Americans age 45 to 65. These cards have the AARP logo 

and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service logo on them. In addition, 

brochures will be in every one of 33,000 Post Offices around the 

country, and several television PSAs will air on the topic throughout the month of March. Also, our Foundation’s Fraud Fighter Call 

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Center’s phone number is on every card being mailed in Washington State as a pilot project. Already, thousands of caregivers 

and victims who have been targeted by fraud are calling in. 

And, finally, even AARP has had to contend with this misrepresentation and exploitation. In Maine, our State office received information from local law enforcement concerning fraudulent telephone calls being made to residents by people claiming to be our 

representatives. What they were trying to do was use the AARP as 

a representation of getting Social Security information, which they 

could then toss into the mix. Our Maine State Office responded 

with a full press blitz, warning residents who received telephone 

calls from someone claiming to be from AARP or any other entity 

that asked for sensitive information they should contact their local 

police department immediately to report the incident. Would they 

be so lucky to get Sheriff King’s department as somebody to partner. 

In conclusion, consumer fraud has been and continues to be a 

significant problem. A study a couple years ago estimated the number is approaching $3 billion. Intervention, prevention, and tough 

enforcement at both the Federal, State, and local level are needed 

to combat these ruthless—I will not use the word ‘‘con artists,’’ 

they are just criminals. 

Our belief is, after a lifetime of doing all the right things to prepare for a comfortable and dignified retirement, too many older 

Americans are having their retirement security threatened by 

these financial predators. AARP will continue to work with all 

partners, Congress, and across all levels of law enforcement, to inform Americans about these scams and to prevent more tragedies 

like the ones that have been shared with us here today. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Romasco follows:] 

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Chairman NELSON. Mr. Romasco, to what degree do you think 

that the prepaid money cards—this is one example, it is a money 

pack. You load money onto it and then you can transfer the money 

by the PIN number. To what degree do they have a responsibility, 

in your opinion—speaking for AARP—to help crack down on this 

scam? 

Mr. ROMASCO. Senator, I think that we have to look at the entire 

financial system. I think these are participants, and we heard the 

names of respected—the Visa card, the whole credit card industry, 

bank wire transfers, every vehicle. These guys will use any vehicle 

to get money. So I would not limit myself to prepaid cards. They 

have an equal responsibility, but I look at the whole financial 

money system. This is money laundering. This is fraud. And these 

guys understand the rules and they get the money. So I think each 

one of these organizations should be required to cooperate and be 

transparent to any investigation that we would launch. 

Chairman NELSON. In the case of some other scams, it is hard 

to find some of the criminals because of the money loaded onto the 

prepaid card—for example, the IRS tax refund—and it is hard to 

go after the criminal because there are no identities there. 

Mr. ROMASCO. Mm-hmm. 

Chairman NELSON. Okay. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Sheriff King, I was struck by the experience of Ms. Nichols and 

Ms. Ellis in trying to get help. Ms. Nichols talked about making 

dozens of phone calls to the State Attorney General’s Office, to the 

FBI, to the Postal Inspector, just over and over again, trying to find 

help, until FairPoint and you both came to the rescue. So that 

raises questions in my mind about the effectiveness of Federal, 

State, and local law enforcement’s efforts to shut down these 

scams. 

I totally agree with our Chairman that the best thing we could 

do would be to extradite some of those criminals from Jamaica and 

prosecute them here in American courts. But short of that—and we 

will be pushing on that front, I can assure you—could you give us 

your analysis of the effort at the Federal level, because that is 

what we have jurisdiction over, to shut down these scams. And in 

particular, I would be interested in your evaluation of Project 

JOLT, which is the law enforcement task force at the Federal level. 

Mr. KING. What I found in the Federal level is a culture of indifference. I have not found a lot of interest in doing these scams and 

doing these cases. 

Back in August 2011, we knew—we investigated this and I could 

not get any Federal agency to help me. As recent as January, a 

couple of months ago, we had another case that came in from 

Aroostook County, and the Aroostook County detective called me 

because the Aroostook County victim was sending money to a person in Lebanon, Maine, in Southern Maine, and that person was 

a past victim who was facilitating the scam, sending the money to 

Jamaica. 

And it just so happened that that victim in Lebanon, who was 

the facilitator, developed a friendship with the scammer and she 

had sent things to him. So we had a real address and we actually 

had a true name of the scammer. So I immediately contacted JOLT 

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and said, ‘‘Let us get on this,’’ and I even used one of my contacts 

that I met in Jamaica when I went to a conference just to ascertain, is that address a true address. 

So I had a true name and I had a true address and the only response I got from JOLT was, ‘‘Are you working with any Federal 

agencies?’’ No. No. None want to do this. But, please, we can take 

care of this. My idea was to send a watch or something—she had 

sent him jewelry before—and put some scam money in it and 

watch it go in. They were not—I did not receive any response. My 

e-mails went unanswered. 

A couple weeks later, a news station went and they interviewed 

this woman and said, ‘‘Gee, tell the scammer that you have a 

girlfriend coming to town.’’ They did, and they met the scammer in 

a cafe ́, and it was featured last night on World News. 

So these cases are complicated, but they are not that complicated. What we need to do is put our egos aside and work on 

these cases. Federal, local, county agencies can all work together 

and we can get these cases solved, and I think you and Chairman 

Nelson are absolutely right. Extradite a couple of these criminals 

and we will send a very clear message that we mean business. 

Senator COLLINS. It is extraordinary to me that here you had a 

case all developed. You are delivering it on a silver platter to the 

officials. And yet, still no action was taken. I can assure you that 

the Chairman and I are going to pursue this vigorously. This is 

just wrong, and we will show a chart later in the hearing that 

shows the number of these cases has just exploded, which is what 

happens when there is no prosecution, when there is no penalty 

that is being paid by these scammers. 

Dr. Shadel, I understand that you are the coauthor of two critical 

studies on fraud and that you found that the con artists rely on 

three techniques in particular. Could you just briefly explain to the 

committee the three techniques, because that might help alert families and victims of what to be aware of. 

Mr. SHADEL. Yes. Thank you, Senator Collins. Well, the first one 

you have heard described here, which is—we call it phantom 

wealth dangling. A phantom is something that you want, but you 

cannot have, and all con artists do this. The Jamaicans do it, as 

well. So that is what the $8.1 million lottery winnings, or $2.5 million is. 

And what happens, when we interview these con men, they say, 

what we are trying to do is get people under the ether. Ether is 

a heightened emotional state where you get so excited about this 

phantom wealth that you stop thinking rationally and you are just 

thinking in terms of, all I can think about is what this will buy, 

what it will do for my family. So I would say the first one is dangling that phantom wealth. 

The second one is really about just urgency, getting people to act 

quickly. If you do not spend $2,000 for the taxes now, someone else 

will get the winnings. That is just a strategy for getting people to 

move. But it is all designed to get people into this heightened emotional state, and the heightened emotional state explains why retired physicians, doctors, lawyers can do this, because they are not 

engaged—their cognitive capacity is not engaged. It is being bypassed because they are in this ether. 

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And the final one, which we have seen done most with the Jamaicans, is just plain fear, people threatening to—you know, ‘‘Do 

you want me to come and burn your house down?’’ which we saw 

on the news the other day. And that is what makes this Jamaican 

scam different than other scams we have investigated before, is 

just the relentlessness of it, just calling hundreds of times. Most 

con artists will follow the path of least resistance. If you say no, 

they will move on because there is always somebody else. Not with 

the Jamaicans. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I would note that these criminals from Jamaica 

are so brazen that they have actually called Sheriff King, too, when 

they have been in search of a victim that they lost contact with. 

It is just extraordinary, how brazen they are. Thank you very 

much. 

Chairman NELSON. They have called me with the answer on the 

phone, ‘‘Senate Aging Committee.’’ Indeed. 

Okay. Senator Warren. 

Senator WARREN. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, 

Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking Member Collins, for holding this hearing. It is so important, what you bring out here. And 

I want to thank every one of you for showing up. 

I also want to thank Senator Collins, in particular. We hear 

down in Massachusetts about the education programs that you 

have run on this and trying to help warn people and we are trying 

to learn from it. 

I want a chance to publicly acknowledge the Massachusetts Association of Retired Federal Employees. We are about to send a mailing from our office, a warning from our office. They are going to 

send out a mailing to 10,000 of their members about this. We are 

trying to learn what we can to try to be helpful on the educational 

front, and I am grateful for every idea here. 

I want to say, this has been covered some in the Massachusetts 

papers. We have been trying to follow this. And I read a piece in 

a Massachusetts paper reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation will not get involved in a fraud unless there is more than 

a million dollars at stake. I have not been able to verify this, but 

I would just like to know, Sheriff King, have you heard anything 

about this and do you have any comment on that? 

Mr. KING. No, I do not know about that. I know they have oftentimes high-dollar figures, that they only want to work on the most 

impactful crimes. But I have just not—I have gone to the FBI. I 

just have not—it just seems to be that culture of indifference that 

they do not want to work on these types of cases. 

Senator WARREN. Well, I am really struck, too, particularly in 

this case, because, Ms. Nichols, I think you were saying, and I 

think you were, too, Ms. Ellis, it does not start at $100,000 or 

$600,000. It starts—how much, Ms. Nichols? 

Ms. NICHOLS. Five hundred, in the case of my dad. 

Senator WARREN. That is right, which sounds too small for Federal involvement. I very much take the point around this that perhaps our Federal agencies need to rethink how they evaluate this 

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vidual, the self-worth of an individual, which I think is a very serious part. And I appreciate your bringing a real sense of what is 

going on there. Thank you for coming forward and doing this. 

I want to ask one other question, though. Mr. Romasco, you described—and in the question, I think Dr. Shadel did, too—about 

the question about the money cards. Since the whole financial system—and you referred to this as money laundering, effectively, 

which made my ears perk up. 

We had a money laundering hearing just last week and the conversation about money laundering was around drugs and around 

moving money out of countries where we have economic sanctions, 

such as Iran, and part of our national security policy is to make 

sure that we are not bringing in money from those countries, not 

trading. And we hold financial institutions responsible. At least on 

paper, we hold them responsible for money laundering. I think 

there is a serious question about enforcement there, as well. 

But I want to ask you the question about whether or not these 

scams either currently fit within the laws of money laundering or 

should be fitted into the laws of money laundering. 

Mr. ROMASCO. Well, I am a little cautious about being a legal expert—— 

Senator WARREN. Fair enough. 

Mr. ROMASCO [continuing]. But one of the things that is great 

about people is we learn from others. 

Senator WARREN. Mm-hmm. 

Mr. ROMASCO. And my speculation is that these scammers have 

learned. If, as we have heard, they were in the drug business, the 

drug business is pretty smart about laundering money. Gee, you 

think they might have applied the same techniques of moving cash 

from point A to point B to the scamming business? That is just 

speculation on my part. 

So, again, from our perspective, we are about consumer education, prevention, and just arming our members and the people 

over 50 with the tools to say no and protect themselves. At the 

same time, we would advocate consistent aggressive law enforcement, and the reason I said it is the whole financial system is not 

because I have unique knowledge about it, but as a businessman, 

you look at all the ways to achieve your objective, and that is what 

these criminals are doing. If they learned how to move money to 

buy drugs and all that kind of stuff, they probably know the ins 

and outs of the financial system and how to move money from 

Manhattan to Colombia to Jamaica, and I would suggest that it is 

the entire—we have to look at that. 

And I think you make an extraordinarily important point. Because you do not start out at $10,000 or a million dollars, but if 

in collective it impacts tens of thousands of our senior citizens, and 

if the Met Life study is even remotely close, $3 billion? If someone 

showed up here and said, ‘‘I am going to steal $3 billion from seniors in America,’’ I think there would be a lot of people pretty upset 

about it. 

Senator WARREN. That is right. I think we could probably—— 

Mr. ROMASCO. But if it happens gradually—— 

Senator WARREN [continuing]. Get the police to respond. 

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Mr. ROMASCO. If it is gradually, under the radar and offshore, it 

does not have the visibility and the powerful impact. 

Senator WARREN. Uh-huh. Thank you. That is a very important 

point. 

Dr. Shadel, did you want to add? I am just about over—I am over 

time, but—— 

Mr. SHADEL. I think he said it very well. The only thing I would 

point out that is—I do not want to necessarily defend law enforcement, although I was an investigator for a lot of years, and I gave 

up trying to catch con men because they were always one step 

ahead. Now, with technology and with this Jamaican thing, where 

they are having victims send money to each other, it is really, really challenging to try and figure out where the money is going, 

so—— 

Senator WARREN. Well, thank you very much, but I am quite 

sure that if we do not try, we will never figure it out, and that cannot be the right answer. I hope there is a special circle of hell for 

the people who prey on our seniors in this way. 

Chairman NELSON. Amen. 

Senator WARREN. Thank you. 

Chairman NELSON. Senator Ayotte. 

Senator AYOTTE. First of all, I want to thank Chairman Nelson 

and Ranking Member Collins for holding this important hearing 

and for your leadership on this issue. 

And thank you, Sheriff King, for obviously being so dedicated to 

pursuing these cases. I appreciated the time that you came to explain them to me. And also, Kim, I am so sorry about what your 

father has gone through, but so glad that you have taken on this 

advocacy to explain this issue so that we can prevent other seniors 

from being victims of this. There is a special place in hell—I agree 

with Senator Warren on that—for the people that do this. 

I was curious in listening to the experience, Sheriff, that you said 

you had with, I believe, the JOLT Task Force within ICE, and it 

struck me that ICE seemed an odd place to put this. I understand, 

obviously, the connection with Jamaica, but for other crimes—for 

example, when we want to focus on crimes against children, we 

have an Internet Crimes Against Children. Whether it is gun 

crimes, the DOJ will do a Gun Task Force. 

So what do you think about the idea, and what do you think 

would be best on a law enforcement model? The Department of 

Justice strikes me as a better place for this, and also to make it 

a priority to create some kind of dedicated task force, given the billions of dollars we are talking about as a loss. So I just wanted to 

get your thoughts of what you thought the best path forward, and 

if we are really serious about enforcement, how do we dedicate people that are really going to take this seriously, and that is their 

mission, to dismantle the people who are committing this fraudulent scheme? 

Mr. KING. Well, I think the FBI has the infrastructure currently 

available to handle this and I would like to see task forces similar 

to the JTTF, the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, that are all over the 

country and they have a specific area and they can take ownership 

of that. I think Chairman Nelson mentioned earlier that he knew 

of a case where somebody was sending $300 million and they were 

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on the FBI Watchlist. Those watchlists are available. In fact, I 

have had a victim of mine on the watchlist and I said, why did you 

not tell us, and they did not tell us. So it is very frustrating from 

the boots-on-the-ground law enforcement not to have the whole picture when we are investigating these cases. We are the ones that 

typically get the first information about that. 

But I think, you know, a system similar to JTTFs throughout the 

country, where somebody takes ownership and there is someplace 

to go. The dozens of victims and their families that I have spoken 

to throughout the country as a result of the FairPoint Web site, everybody expressed that. There is just no place to go to report these 

crimes. 

Senator AYOTTE. So when you say a JTTF model, you are thinking about the collaboration with local, State, and Federal, maybe 

led by DOJ with dedicated coordination efforts? 

Mr. KING. Absolutely. I think that is the perfect model to have. 

Senator AYOTTE. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you for that. 

And what else—I mean, I know that Senator Collins said, and 

I fully agree with her that we should do everything we can to extradite these criminals from Jamaica. I just wanted to get your 

thoughts on what efforts we are undertaking with respect to putting pressure on Jamaica and the Jamaican government and partners. Is there more that we can do at the Congressional level to 

help those efforts? 

Mr. KING. Well, I know that the Jamaican officials—I forget the 

name of the organization, but they had a conference here on February 22, and Jamaica does have a concerted strategy. You know, 

they are going to do it with increased operations, education, and 

legislation. I would at least like to see us have a similar strategy, 

and perhaps we do not need the legislation, but at least have a 

strategic plan in place of how we are going to collaborate with the 

Jamaicans to get the information in a timely fashion. 

I think studies are wonderful and they certainly tell us stuff, but, 

I mean, here we are, how many years later, and we are still being 

victimized. And a study sometimes is not—that is one of the flaws 

with intelligence. It is not timely and it is not—you cannot use it 

operationally, because by the time a study comes out, it has already passed a couple years. 

So I think that is what—I just think we need to be operational 

quicker so that when we get a phone number in Jamaica, we have 

some Jamaican collaboration and we find out where that number 

is going. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, you know, when we see a problem and we 

put together a task force of JTTF, my experience when I was Attorney General, we can get things together quickly if we want to, and 

hopefully with the backing, obviously, of the people who are here 

to try to get the right task force and action. And I agree with you. 

This is too critical. We cannot just study this. We have got to move 

on this right away. 

So I really appreciate all the witnesses here, your testimony, 

your advice, and we appreciate receiving your advice going forward 

on how we can address this and stop these horrible crimes. Thank 

you. 

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Chairman NELSON. And we want to thank the first panel, and 

as we are going to the second panel, I will indicate to you that we 

have a new Pope. It is Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina. 

[Exclamations of surprise.] 

Mr. ROMASCO. That was quick. See, things can happen quickly. 

You are right, Senator. 

Chairman NELSON. That is right. 

[Laughter.] 

Okay. Thank you again. 

Now, we are going to hear from some additional folks with a different perspective. We are going to hear from Shawn Tiller, Deputy 

Chief Inspector of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Mr. Tiller 

oversees the Inspection Service Criminal Investigations Group, Forensic Laboratory Services Unit, Management, Analysis, and Planning Group, and Career Development Unit. He also serves as the 

Postal Inspection Service’s designee on the Elder Justice Coordinating Council, a multi-agency group that advises on the prevention of abuse, neglect, and exploitation. 

And then we are going to hear from Vance Callender. He is the 

Operations Chief in charge of Homeland Security Investigation Offices in both Mexico and Canada. He opened the first Homeland Security Investigation Office at the U.S. Embassy in Kingston, Jamaica, and was the country attache. While in Jamaica, Mr. 

Callender also created Project JOLT, which we have spoken about, 

the Jamaican Operations Link to Telemarketing. It is an international task force which targets Jamaican-based advance fee 

fraud, which you have heard about. 

And then we are going to hear from Phil Hopkins, who is the 

Vice President of Global Security for Western Union Financial 

Services. He formerly served 20 years in the U.S. Secret Service, 

completing his career as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of 

the Houston Field Office. 

And so before we proceed, we are going to have a video that the 

U.S. Postal Inspection Service prepared to share with the committee. The woman shown is Ms. Ellis’ mother. 

[A videotape was played.] 

Does that not tell you how vulnerable this population is? 

Okay. Mr. Tiller. 

STATEMENT OF SHAWN S. TILLER, DEPUTY CHIEF 

INSPECTOR, U.S. POSTAL INSPECTION SERVICE 

Mr. TILLER. Good afternoon. Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member 

Collins, and the members of the Special Committee, I am Shawn 

Tiller, Deputy Chief Postal Inspector of the United States Postal 

Inspection Service. On behalf of our agency, I appreciate the opportunity to provide this statement in support of this hearing on Jamaican phone fraud targeting seniors. 

The Postal Inspection Service has a long, proud, and successful 

history of fighting crime against those who attack our nation’s 

Postal system and misuse it to defraud, endanger, or otherwise 

threaten the American public. My testimony will describe our experiences investigating Jamaican lottery fraud and how we work to 

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protect U.S. consumers, particularly in the areas of enforcement, 

education, and partnerships. 

International lottery and prize scams are not new. They are a 

variation of traditional advance fee scams promising guaranteed 

wins. They require victims to send a fee to redeem their prize. Consumers send money to these crooks but never receive a prize. Instead, they are relentlessly coerced into sending more of their hardearned money. 

Evolving technologies allows criminals to easily cross international borders quickly and anonymously. They prey on Americans from countries overseas and out of reach of U.S. jurisdiction, 

which is why we term them cross-border. Disposable cell phones 

and Voice Over Internet Protocol extend the overseas criminals’ 

reach into the American household. The number of countries housing predators who target Americans continues to rise, as do the 

number of victims. 

The use of the mail to commit these crimes provides the Postal 

Inspection Service investigative jurisdiction. In traditional foreign 

lottery scams, the mail nexus commonly occurs in solicitations sent 

to consumers. The Jamaican scam differs, however, in that victims 

are more often solicited by phone and the Internet and may use the 

mail to send money to the scammer. Jamaican lottery fraud is a 

growing problem for Americans, but it has not involved the use of 

the mail to the extent of more traditional advance fee scams. 

Consumer complaint data received through the Postal Inspection 

Service’s Complaint Hotline since September 2008 ranks Jamaica 

16th as a source country for foreign lottery and sweepstakes complaints. They trend significantly behind Canada, Australia, and the 

Netherlands. 

The potential for fraud is infinite and we believe it is under-reported due to a number of factors. Victims do not know where to 

report fraud or they are embarrassed to do so. Cognitive issues 

may also play a role. Despite the low number of complaints we received, our investigative efforts have identified more than 1,000 

victims who have suffered nearly $17 million in losses from fiscal 

year 2009 to 2012. These investigations were conducted under the 

Jamaican Operations Linked to Telemarketing Task Force, also 

known as Project JOLT. To date, we count 20 indictments, 92 arrests, and 18 convictions amongst our successes. We have returned 

$1.4 million to these victims. 

We combat these crimes most effectively through cross-border 

task forces. Prior to JOLT, we have experienced successes as part 

of the Center of Operations Linked to Telemarketing Fraud, or 

COLT, and several other Canadian and international partnerships. 

In a little more than three years, Project JOLT is making 

progress. Information sharing between agencies continues to increase as we learn how to better coordinate and facilitate its flow 

between countries. The Jamaican government is developing new 

laws to address strategy gaps. We embrace the advances made and 

adapt our enforcement efforts accordingly. But there is a great deal 

more to achieve. 

Law enforcement’s deterrence factor in traditional advance fee 

schemes is diminished by the cross-border element. Arrests alone 

will not stop these crimes as law enforcement is not the first line 

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of defense. When consumers make the wrong decisions, law enforcement, consumer groups, and government leaders are called to 

action. Offenders are brought to justice through enforcement, and 

we might restore a portion of the victims’ losses. But we are seldom 

able to repair the emotional damage caused by these crimes. 

Consumers can be empowered through education, preventing 

them from becoming a victim of fraud, halting their financial demise and avoiding the emotional toll. Education is clearly the first 

line of defense. We can help older Americans by alerting their caregivers about the warning signs of fraud and victimization. That is 

why we are committed to prevention and outreach efforts and seek 

innovative ways to deliver our message to the public. 

In recent years, we have launched consumer education initiatives 

targeting current and ongoing scams. We use print, broadcast, and 

social mediums to address the message to the public. We have participated in press events, including last week’s press conference 

held by you, Mr. Chairman, in the great State of Florida, to help 

raise this awareness. We have leveraged public and private sector 

partnerships to expand our outreach, creating crime alerts which 

air in 90 media markets three times each week in more than three 

million homes. 

And we have partnered with AARP to educate consumers, caregivers, and older Americans. Together, we placed foreign lottery 

fraud prevention materials in more than 30,000 Post Offices across 

the country and sent a mailing to 25 million American households 

directing at-risk consumers to fraud prevention resources. I 

brought an example of these materials, which were cosponsored by 

AARP, and I hope they are in your packet, and they should be in 

the back of the room. 

We at the Postal Inspection Service commend the members of 

this committee for focusing attention on this significant and troubling issue and thank you very much for inviting us to testify today 

and contribute our experiences. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tiller follows:] 

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Chairman NELSON. Thank you. 

Mr. CALLENDER. 

STATEMENT OF VANCE R. CALLENDER, OPERATIONS CHIEF 

FOR MEXICO AND CANADA, HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. CALLENDER. Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Collins, 

and distinguished members of the committee, on behalf of Secretary Napolitano and Director Morton I would like to thank you 

for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the efforts 

of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and how we combat 

cross-border financial crime, such as telemarketing fraud. 

ICE has the most expansive investigative authority and the largest force of criminal investigators in the Department of Homeland 

Security. With more than 20,000 employees and a budget of nearly 

$6 billion, ICE has nearly 7,000 special agents assigned to more 

than 200 cities throughout the United States and 74 offices in 48 

countries around the world. Working with other Federal agencies 

and international partners, ICE disrupts and dismantles 

transnational criminal networks by targeting the illicit pathways 

and organizations that engage in cross-border crime. 

As you know, telemarketing fraud schemes, including bogus lottery and sweepstakes schemes, phony investment pitches, business 

opportunities, tax fraud schemes, and others have grown increasingly sophisticated and international in scope. According to the 

U.S. Federal Trade Commission, consumers lose hundreds of millions of dollars annually to cross-border financial crime, such as 

telemarketing fraud, often leading to devastating consequences. In 

many cases, a loss represents the victim’s entire life savings and, 

of course, probably into debt. 

Perpetrators of this fraud prey on consumers of all ages, backgrounds, income levels, but sadly, it is the elderly who are disproportionately targeted. Scammers take advantage of the fact that 

elderly Americans may have cash reserves or other assets to spend 

on these deceptive offers. Elderly Americans may also be reluctant 

to report the incident for fear of losing financial independence 

should their families discover the fraud. Intimidation, confusion, 

and exhausted victims may yield to the telemarketers’ demands. 

Over the past decade, U.S. complaints about telemarketing fraud 

originating from Jamaica have increased significantly. Fraudulent 

telemarketing has become a lucrative source of income for criminal 

organizations in Jamaica. According to Jamaican law enforcement, 

local gangs employ telemarketing fraud tactics to raise capital, 

which is often used to facilitate drug smuggling and weapons 

smuggling into and out of the United States. 

A lead list, or a list of potential victims, including the individual 

addresses and phone numbers, can be purchased by brokers for $3 

to $7 per name. These lists can be ten to 15 pages long and list 

hundreds of potential victims. Each name on this list represents a 

potential profit of tens of thousands of dollars. 

Violence related to telemarketing scams has grown significantly 

in Jamaica. The gangs and criminal organizations exchange gunfire 

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over these lead lists and access to them. Some of the violence has 

spilled over into other countries, as well. 

As a result, in March 2009, ICE entered into an agreement with 

the Jamaican constabulary force to form the Project JOLT Task 

Force. Project JOLT stands for Jamaican Operations Linked to 

Telemarketing. Project JOLT focuses on identifying, disrupting, 

dismantling organizations perpetrating Jamaican-based telemarketing fraud. Project JOLT also works to recover the money 

fraudulently obtained by the telemarketers and repatriates those 

funds back to the victims. 

In fact, you may be glad to hear that just yesterday, ICE returned $45,000 to an elderly woman in Raleigh, North Carolina, 

who had been defrauded by scammers in Jamaica, and she had lost 

almost a quarter-of-a-million dollars. 

In the U.S., Project JOLT collaborates with private companies 

like Western Union as well as other Federal agencies, such as the 

Department of Justice, U.S. Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Postal 

Inspection Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. The 

ICE-led JOLT Task Force continues to meet regularly with our Jamaican counterparts. We discuss ongoing trends and share information. ICE is also assisting Jamaican law enforcement by providing training and guidance concerning financial crimes. 

Since its inception, Project JOLT has initiated 450 investigations 

in Jamaica resulting in 149 arrests, ten indictments, six convictions. In addition, these investigations have resulted in the seizure 

of over $1 million, much of which has been repatriated or is in the 

process of being repatriated back to victims. 

It should be noted there has and continues to be unprecedented 

cooperation with the government of Jamaica on these important 

issues. The Jamaican government has recently enacted new laws to 

facilitate the investigation, prosecution, and conviction of 

scammers, which will no doubt help law enforcement efforts moving forward. In addition, ICE will soon be conducting outreach 

training at the request of the Jamaican National Overseas Bank in 

New York and Florida to highlight some of the typologies associated with Jamaican telemarketing fraud. 

I want to thank you again for the opportunity to appear before 

you today and for your efforts in highlighting such important work. 

We look forward to working with the committee in the future and 

I am pleased to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Callender follows:] 

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Chairman NELSON. Mr. Callender, we are going to come back to 

you because we want you to tell us what it is going to take to get 

an indictment here, and then we can address the sending the person here from Jamaica. 

All right. Mr. Hopkins, tell us about Western Union. 

STATEMENT OF PHIL HOPKINS, VICE PRESIDENT OF GLOBAL 

SECURITY, THE WESTERN UNION COMPANY 

Mr. HOPKINS. Good afternoon, Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Collins, and members of the committee. I am Phil Hopkins and 

I am the Vice President of Global Security for Western Union. I 

have been with Western Union for seven years. Before that, I 

served for 20 years with the United States Secret Service. 

I think we all can agree that aggressive action should be taken 

to fight the criminals who take advantage of potential fraud victims. Preventing fraud is one of Western Union’s top priorities. We 

have a comprehensive anti-fraud program which emphasizes consumer education and awareness, fraud monitoring and controls, 

and ongoing collaboration with law enforcement. I can only speak 

generally about our efforts. On certain points, I cannot provide details because we do not want to let the fraudsters know how to 

evade our program, abuse our system, and victimize our customers. 

Because criminals are constantly changing their tactics in an effort 

to evade our program, we regularly review and modify it. 

Education is a big part of our program. We provide fraud awareness information to consumers at the point of sale, and since 

fraudsters prey on the elderly, we have designed consumer outreach campaigns to reach our senior citizens. 

Western Union trains its agents in detecting and deterring fraud 

at the point of sale. Our agents are trained to listen to the consumers for cues indicating fraudulent activity. Agents who suspect 

that a transaction is fraudulent are trained to refuse the transaction or report it to Western Union for further investigation. 

Western Union also has a monetary reward program for its agents, 

known as the Eagle Eye Program, which incentivizes agents to detect and prevent fraud. 

We have industry-leading controls designed to stop fraudulent 

transactions before they are paid. Western Union attempts to contact senders whose transactions meet certain criteria to interview 

them in an attempt to determine if they are victims of fraud. 

Where we detect or suspect fraud, or if we cannot contact the sender, the transfer is canceled and all the funds and fees are returned 

to the sender. We also operate an interdiction program designed to 

prevent suspected fraudsters from receiving money transfers and to 

prevent chronic consumer fraud victims from sending money. 

Continuous and regular collaboration with law enforcement is 

another key component of Western Union’s anti-fraud program. For 

example, Western Union participates in the ICE-led multi-agency 

international task force known as Project JOLT that was created 

to combat Jamaican-based telemarketing operations that prey on 

U.S. citizens. 

On a daily basis, Western Union receives investigative leads 

from law enforcement and works with investigators to identify 

fraudulent activities. The Western Union personnel who work in 

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our anti-fraud program have extensive backgrounds working in law 

enforcement agencies. 

In addition to all these measures, Western Union has paid particular attention to Jamaican fraud over the past few years. In the 

summer of 2012, when it appeared that these activities were increasing, we took enhanced measures, including suspending all 13 

Western Union locations in Montego Bay for a minimum of two 

weeks. The temporary closure allowed us to extensively review 

agent activities and implement additional controls. We then implemented a $400 payout limit per transaction in the Montego Bay 

area and limited the number of transactions and the amount of 

money consumers in Jamaica can pick up in certain time periods. 

Western Union looks forward to continuing to work with this 

committee, law enforcement, and regulators on preventing consumers from becoming victims of fraud. 

Thank you again for inviting me to testify today. I look forward 

to answering any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hopkins follows:] 

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Chairman NELSON. Thank you. 

Mr. Callender, thank you for setting up Project JOLT when you 

were the attache in the embassy in Jamaica. 

Mr. CALLENDER. Yes, sir. 

Chairman NELSON. What do you think it is going to take to get 

an indictment here on what is going on there? 

Mr. CALLENDER. Well, I can tell you that is being worked right 

now with agents on Project JOLT, working both domestically and 

in Jamaica. I cannot give details on that because I could compromise that, but these type of things are—extradition investigations are forthcoming. 

Chairman NELSON. Can you imagine what it would be like for a 

prosecutor to put either of the daughters of the two witnesses in 

Panel One on the stand and get that story and what an effect that 

would have on a jury? 

Mr. CALLENDER. Absolutely. I could not agree more. I have 

talked to literally hundreds of these victims myself. I have talked 

to them at every stage of the scam, trying to work through these 

issues with them, talked to their family members, encouraging the 

family members to take over their finances, to collect the evidence 

that the victims may have to get it in a manner that we can start— 

I can deploy agents in our domestic offices to get out there and 

take these statements from them. And it is time consuming. We 

have found that once you find one victim, it will lead you to 100 

victims. 

It is a massive investigation. There is a lot of evidence. Most of 

these victims, as you have seen from the videos and the evidence 

that has been presented, they sometimes send 100 to 1,000 wire 

transfers over the course of two years. Doing these types of investigations requires very slow, diligent documentation of every one of 

those wire transfers and a statement from the victim that denotes 

each one of these transfers. 

So you can imagine the time it would take to interview 50 victims across the U.S. in different States, each of them sending 100, 

300, 400 wire transfers, and bringing all that information together, 

creating an aggregate amount of loss. It is a very time consuming 

investigation. It is very slow. But the evidence—the great thing for 

us is the evidence is all there to make these cases. Jamaica is a 

country we can extradite out of. These things will happen, I guarantee you. 

Chairman NELSON. We would like—Senator Collins and I would 

like to be briefed on the ongoing investigation, realizing that we 

cannot be privy to a criminal investigation, but we would like to 

know the background because we have the responsibility as part of 

the oversight of the executive branch to make sure that this is getting ready and it is getting prepared to go in front of a grand jury 

for an indictment. 

Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Callender, I, too, commend you for creating the task force 

and clearly caring about this issue, but my concern is that we are 

just scratching the surface with our enforcement efforts. If you 

have seized $1.2 million, much of which has been returned to the 

victims, that is a tiny fraction of the amount that has been sent 

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to Jamaica to these criminals. The estimate that I have heard is 

a minimum of $300 million a year flowing from elderly victims to 

these con artists, these scammers in Jamaica. So we are a long 

ways from getting a handle on this. 

In addition, if you look at the complaints to the Federal Trade 

Commission, which obviously just has civil jurisdiction, not criminal—and I would like that chart to be displayed if we could—okay, 

I thought we had it on the—I guess we do not have it on the teleprompter. But as you can see, it has gone up and up and up, and 

for the last calendar year, there are over 29,000 complaints. Well, 

that amount grossly underestimates how much fraud there really 

is out there because we know that this is an under-reported crime. 

So I am concerned when you look at the dramatic increase in the number of complaints over the past few years, the estimate of $300 

million, that our efforts, while they are well intentioned, are just 

not strong enough. They are just not effective enough. And since 

I know you care about this issue so much or you would not have 

created the task force, I am seeking your expert advice on what can 

we do about this to—part of it is public awareness, and that is one 

reason I asked the Chairman to hold this hearing, because I think 

public awareness helps a great deal. If we can get the message out 

to seniors that if they do not have relatives in Jamaica and they 

see the 876 area code come up, it is not to hang up on the person. 

It is, do not answer in the first place. 

But what can we do from a law enforcement perspective to shut 

this down, to make the message sent to these criminals that this 

crime is not going to pay? 

Mr. CALLENDER. I can tell you, ma’am, what we have done so far, 

and that is just not myself, it is the men at this table with me and 

other law enforcement officials in Jamaica and across the country, 

is to lay the foundation and the pathway to get to where we need 

to be, to get to where this committee would like to see. We have 

established the relationships, which did not exist before within the 

country, with the host law enforcement, numerous law enforcement 

agencies across Jamaica—passport/immigration service, the Jamaican constabulary force, Jamaican military, the financial investigative division within Jamaica, their public corruption people. 

That foundation has been laid. It is a slow process. All the statutes in Jamaica are being corrected or being updated to address 

the crime. It was very hard to prosecute these crimes in Jamaica 

because the legislation had not developed to this new type of crime 

in Jamaica. There was no Proceeds of Crime Act in Jamaica until 

2007, 2008. So we were some of the first people in the history of 

Jamaica to forfeit a list of proceeds, and it just so happens these 

were JOLT proceeds to get back to victims. 

So the first case that we worked in 2008, who was a young lady 

from El Paso who had sent her and her husband’s life savings, 

which was $60,000—he left her, she moved into a homeless shelter—and we were able to repatriate $15,000. It took us a year and 

a half to get that through the Jamaican court system. Now, that 

process, because of that first one, has sped up significantly. We are 

able to get those proceeds back more rapidly. 

But it is a learning process and it is based on relationships. We 

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cers there, capacity building, providing leads, giving training. And 

it is not just us, it is our partners. It is Western Union. It is the 

Postal Inspection Service. And then remember, as well, our agency, 

Homeland Security Investigations, has over 400 other crimes that 

we investigate. 

One of your fellow committee members there had asked the question, why is ICE the one—I wanted to make that clear, why do we 

have this jurisdiction. Because we handle cross-border crimes. 

Senator COLLINS. Right. 

Mr. CALLENDER. It is a financial crime. And, you know, it has an 

effect on the U.S. financial system as it does the Jamaican financial system. 

Now, part of what we have learned in doing what we have done 

so far, the first six months of JOLT, we identified 36,000 victims 

in six months, and there is not a law enforcement agency on this 

planet that can open 36,000 cases on one particular crime and still 

handle other crimes that are afoot. 

What we have to do is work smarter, not harder, and that is developing ways to group the victims together by the criminals targeting them. That way, we are able to identify which criminal 

groups are most successful by the amount of loss, the aggregate 

loss to the victims, and that aggregate loss is also used in the sentencing guidelines in the U.S. court system. 

Senator COLLINS. I know it is slow. I know it is complicated. I 

know that 36,000 victims is an enormous number. But we have got 

to go after these people and we have got to put pressure on the Jamaican government to continually update its laws. That has only 

happened very recently. It is still ongoing. And we have got to send 

a stronger signal. And I think the best way to do that, to deter others, is to put some people in prison. That is what is going to send 

the strong signal that this does not pay anymore. 

And Jamaica has got to do its part, as well. I, too, met with Jamaican diplomats this past week and I think they are finally taking it seriously, but it has taken a number of years for them to do 

so. I would like to see them put the effort in this, in stopping these 

scams, that it puts into enticing Americans to come vacation in Jamaica. A lot of money is spent on that. 

So we have just got to be more forceful and effective in this area, 

and I know you cannot open 36,000 cases, but I will tell you, if we 

saw prosecutions and tough sentences for some of the criminals in 

those cases, it would have an impact. And these people who are 

running the boiler rooms, if we can get at the people overseeing 

these criminal enterprises, it would have an impact. 

Mr. Hopkins, let me just ask a question of you. First of all, I am 

pleased to hear that you did shut down some of your offices until 

you could put in new anti-fraud provisions, but I need to know, 

when you see suspect activity, do you report it to law enforcement? 

Are you working with the JOLT Task Force, with others who have 

the ability to go after these people? I mean, you can try to do prevention, but you do not have any way to do enforcement. 

Mr. HOPKINS. Right. Thank you for that question. Yes, we are. 

We work pretty extensively with all the Federal agencies, not only 

for fraud, but for terrorist financing, for drug smuggling. So I interact literally with every Federal agency that we have. 

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What we do specifically for Jamaica is we, on a monthly basis, 

will send a list of the consumer victims that have identified a reported fraud to us to the agencies down in Homeland Security and 

with the Postal Inspectors. And at the same time, we have started 

to receive lists from them, the known fraudsters in Jamaica that 

we can put on our interdiction list so that those fraudsters are not 

going to be able to receive money from victims here in the U.S. 

I have a team in Denver where we kind of base our U.S. operation out of and we receive right now about 300 calls a month requesting assistance from law enforcement. We are providing information on pick-up locations or money transfer control numbers. 

Another thing that we do is we will take leads from any law enforcement agency that calls us, and if we can develop a comprehensive SARS, a Suspicious Activity Report, we will push that Suspicious Activity Report directly back to that law enforcement agent 

that was making the inquiry, which helps him get the information 

faster and get the investigations going. So I feel like we have a 

pretty aggressive team. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman NELSON. Senator Warren. 

Senator WARREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Callender, every one of these frauds involves the American 

banking system because that is where the money started, whether 

it ends up on a money card or it is done through a credit card or 

it is done directly through a checking account, a wire transfer. So 

can you describe in a general sense how you are working with the 

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve 

Bank, and the Treasury Department? 

Mr. CALLENDER. Well, we have worked with the investigators 

from some of those departments and agencies in Treasury, but, 

really, I mean, it is a crime centered around the victims and the 

evidence they possess. And I can tell you, quite a few of these 

crimes happen cash through the mail, through FedEx. It is not just 

the banking system—— 

Senator WARREN. Fair enough, Mr. Callender. Some of the 

money undoubtedly is cash and FedEx, but we just had two witnesses who sat here and every single thing they described went 

through the American banking system and touched the American 

banking system. 

Mr. CALLENDER. Right. 

Senator WARREN. And the reason I ask about this is Western 

Union is describing the steps they are taking voluntarily in order 

to detect and close down these operations. These are the three Federal banking regulators that I have named who are responsible for 

overseeing the activities of our banks in terms of their responsibilities to detect and to close down operations that involve money 

laundering. So I just want to know, have you reached out, have you 

talked to the regulators about whether or not they, in fact, are examining the banks on this very question of how they deal with 

these scams when this money is moving through the American 

banking system? 

Mr. CALLENDER. We have, ma’am. We call it Operation Cornerstone. It is an operation we have had going on for several years, 

and all of our offices nationwide go to the local banks, go to the 

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regulators. We brief them on the crimes and the different money 

laundering techniques, what is the latest, what they can look out 

for. Part of that is a telemarketing effort. There are many other 

facets to that, as well, but it is Operation Cornerstone and we do 

it continuously. 

Senator WARREN. Well, I appreciate that you go to the local 

banks, but my question is, are the banks coming up with their own 

procedures to monitor this? We have banking regulators who evaluate the banks and supervise the banks in terms of whether they 

are complying with our laws about dealing with money and money 

laundering, and I just want to know if you are talking with the 

bank regulators, not the individual banks, but the bank regulators? 

Mr. CALLENDER. Personally, I have not. I know we have our 

headquarters component that does do that, talk to them on our behalf. As part of JOLT down there, we did not leave the country to 

go talk to the regulators, no. 

Senator WARREN. Fair enough, and I understand that you are in 

the field—— 

Mr. CALLENDER. But, yes, it is happening at a headquarters 

level. It is happening at more of a strategic level by people in our 

agency, yes. 

Senator WARREN. I would just be grateful, as we go forward, to 

be able to learn more about this and find out what is being done 

at the regulatory side, and it is for all of the scams here that attack 

our seniors. 

If I could, there is another question I wanted to ask you. You 

mentioned, I think, in your testimony—perhaps it was in your written testimony—about what are, in effect, the sucker lists that get 

passed around that are enormously valuable. And we heard earlier 

about the work of the AARP, and I am familiar with it. They have 

done some extraordinary work and put extraordinary private resources into trying to warn people, in trying to help people avoid 

the consequences of these scams. And it is my understanding that 

they have asked for these lists to be shared, these sucker lists, and 

that you have not agreed to do that, and I want to understand, 

first, if that is right, and secondly, why. 

Mr. CALLENDER. Well, there is—unfortunately, we have privacy 

issues with this information. Some of it is how we derive it. Some 

of it is derived through our partnerships with Western Union, with 

the Federal Trade Commission. Some of these lists, we pick up during—or the Jamaican government picks up during execution of 

search warrants in Jamaica and their privacy laws do not allow the 

sharing of that information, as well as some of our laws and policies, or rules and policies, as well. 

Senator WARREN. So are you telling me—just because I want to 

understand this—are you telling me this is just a brick wall, that 

there is no place to go with this—— 

Mr. CALLENDER. No, these are things we have definitely worked 

on and we have established Memorandums of Understanding with 

the Federal Trade Commission about sharing of this type of information. But to disclose that to the AARP, at least at this point, for 

us becomes a privacy issue. 

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Senator WARREN. Are you moving toward trying to find a way to 

be able to disclose this to the AARP, or is that avenue right now 

just cut off? 

Mr. CALLENDER. We are always working to further these cases 

and make what we do more effective, and notifying the victims is 

definitely something we would—or potential victims, if we have 

that ability, is something we want to be able to do. 

Senator WARREN. All right. Well, thank you very much, Mr. 

Callender. 

May I have one minute, because I am going to be really quick 

on this—— 

Chairman NELSON. Of course. Take as much time as you want. 

Senator WARREN. Oh, thank you. 

Mr. Tiller, I just wanted to ask a question about the work of the 

Postal Service. You are out here trying to engage in enforcement 

to try to protect our citizens. We read a lot about the Postal Service 

facing financial cuts, that there have already been cuts, that there 

are perhaps more cuts in the future. Could you just speak very 

briefly to the potential impact of these cuts on your ability to enforce our Postal laws and protect our seniors from being scammed? 

Mr. TILLER. Very good. Of course, we understand that the Postal 

Service is in serious economic crisis, but we have to understand 

that criminals do not stop committing crime based on the Postal 

Service’s volume or their income. So we are still out there every 

day, seven days a week, fighting crime, to identify these victims, 

to help preserve the sanctity of the seal and protect the American 

public from that mail hurting them. 

Senator WARREN. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

I apologize. I have a group of high schoolers waiting for me, so 

I am not going to be able to stay for the last few minutes, but 

thank you for being here, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NELSON. Well, you are an excellent member of this 

panel, Senator Warren. We appreciate your expertise and the passion that you bring to this committee. So thank you very much. 

Mr. Callender, first of all, again, I say, thank you for when you 

were the attache in the embassy in Jamaica, you set up this joint 

committee, the JOLT. That was in 2009. Has there been a prosecution by Jamaica’s government of any of these people? 

Mr. CALLENDER. There has, sir. I think for an actual fraud 

charge, there have only been two convictions. But what has happened down there, what they have done since they have had the 

lack of legislation, they have arrested for crimes associated with, 

you know, with going to do the search warrants. If it was not for 

doing the JOLT investigation, they would have not been doing a 

search warrant at this house, but when they get there, they find 

weapons, they find other violations—drugs, things of that nature— 

and so they make arrests based on that. It is going to be a much 

more solid conviction in Jamaica and more time. 

So I would say yes. Even though they may not be exact fraud 

charges, people are going to jail over these investigations down 

there, and they will be for fraud soon with their new legislation. 

One of the major hurdles we had is we needed the victims to 

come testify in Jamaica, and when you have an elderly person, 

traveling overseas, and then when they show up, the defense 

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delays and they reset the court for another month and they end up 

coming down three times, that can be exhausting and it can practically be dangerous for them to travel that much, maybe at a particular age, and we have run into those hurdles quite a bit. So one 

of the new legislative items they are working on is videoconference 

testimony, which will be huge in moving these things forward. 

Chairman NELSON. And it underscores the need for an extradition after the United States Government has indicted some of 

these people. 

Mr. CALLENDER. Absolutely. 

Chairman NELSON. And that would have the chilling effect. 

Before I turn to the former Attorney General of Connecticut, I 

want to ask Mr. Hopkins, I want to thank you for Western Union 

being proactive. Now, we asked some others to come here, the prepaid cards, and they declined. And so I want to enter into the 

record the declining letter from GreenDot. 

[The information from Chairman Nelson follows:] 

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Chairman NELSON. But I think we have got to look at the responsibility of all parties, because we are dealing with a very vulnerable population here. 

All right. Senator Blumenthal. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to 

thank you for convening this hearing. As I learned in my former 

life as an Attorney General for some 20 years, these kinds of scams 

are a real scourge, not only on vulnerable populations, but on everyone, and they continue, as we have seen and heard, not just this 

fraud and scam, but many others, so I thank the Chairman for focusing our attention on this one. 

And I want to join in thanking Western Union for participating 

and cooperating, as not all such private enterprises do. I worked 

on a multi-State agreement, as a matter of fact, with Western 

Union while I was Attorney General dealing with warnings to consumers of the risks of fraud-induced wire transfers. And I hope 

that your fraud prevention efforts have gone beyond what was required under that agreement. I believe that they have. But perhaps 

you can tell us what you have done proactively which perhaps can 

serve as a model for others and help us also possibly frame 

proactive measures on our part. 

Mr. HOPKINS. Thank you, Senator. Yes, I will just kind of touch 

at a high level, like I said, without any real specifics because some 

of the details of the program. But the Courtesy Call-Back Program 

is a part of this prevention effort, and that is where we have various corridors around the world in the high-risk areas—I think we 

actually have over 55 corridors, 60 corridors that we monitor now— 

and if people are sending wire transfers in those corridors, if it hits 

certain parameters, that consumer will get a call back from someone from our call center to try to determine if they are a victim of 

fraud or not. And that particular measure has been extremely successful for us and we continue to expand that program. And we 

constantly monitor the amount. We kind of call it like a zone defense. We are constantly trying to play with the numbers themselves so the fraudsters are not able to determine what those patterns are. 

Another program that we have is our Fraud Hotline. We have 

about 20 Fraud Hotlines now deployed globally. By the end of the 

year, we will have 35, is our goal. And this is our effort to try to 

give not only the U.S. consumers but the global consumers an opportunity to report fraud. So as we have all said and some of the 

witnesses earlier, we know that it is under-reported, and so we are 

trying to enhance our ability to allow our consumers to report 

fraud to us, which is going to give us better statistical information 

and allow us to adjust our program more. 

We also have what we call real-time risk assessment, which is 

a rules-based system that is used to automatically block transactions at a period to fit certain patterns, fraud patterns. And this 

is becoming increasingly useful to us. And as we get better at doing 

this and tweaking these patterns, this allows us to actually stop 

the fraud at the point of sale. So as the consumers come up, it literally blocks the transaction and they are not going to be able to 

do the transaction. We think the expansion of that program over 

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the next year or so is really going to help take our program to another level. 

And yes, Senator, we have, since your agreement, we have continued to enhance our programs and continue to do so. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. And that blocking of the transaction is 

really key, is it not, because it is a lot easier to block it than recover—— 

Mr. HOPKINS. Absolutely. It prevents all the back-end work that 

needs to be done if we just stop it right there at the point of sale. 

So that is three kind of key areas that we have—— 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. I appreciate that. And what would you say 

to people who might complain that it discourages unbanked or 

underbanked people from engaging in legitimate transfers? 

Mr. HOPKINS. That our system—— 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. The fraud prevention. As a sort of devil’s 

advocate-type question, one of the points, I think, that might be 

made is are you discouraging people from engaging in legitimate 

transactions. 

Mr. HOPKINS. Well, I think we are discouraging the fraudsters 

from engaging in transactions. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Right. 

Mr. HOPKINS. That is certainly our goal. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Right. Let me just finish, Mr. Tiller, by 

asking you, in terms of the Postal Service, you may have heard 

Deputy Sheriff King express frustration with the degree of assistance or cooperation from Federal agencies. Is that a well-founded 

complaint? 

Mr. TILLER. Senator, that is a difficult one. It does cause me concern to hear that from a sheriff because we pride ourselves on networking and liaison and coordinating all of our investigations 

across the country. We have 1,400 inspectors spread throughout 

the country. It is very difficult for us to conduct our investigations 

without help, and we actually understand the benefit of leveraging 

our resources. So, obviously, it does cause me concern, which I will 

have to look into at some point. 

But I really feel that that is the big gap. We do not have a lot 

of Sheriff Kings out there in the country that understand this 

scam, so I will share that that is a key, is we need to educate local 

law enforcement what this is, so when they do get a call they have 

the tools available to deal with that. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Because you have a lot of expertise and 

authority that local officials do not have. 

Mr. TILLER. We do, and we are actually working with the National Association of Attorney Generals now, the Inspection Service 

is, to help come up with some tools to share with local law enforcement so they do know how to handle that call when they do get 

it. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NELSON. We will keep the record open for ten days for 

further testimony that wants to be submitted for the record. 

I want to thank the second panel, Mr. Tiller, Mr. Callender, and 

Mr. Hopkins. Thank you very much. I want to thank all the folks 

that have been here today very patiently, interested in this subject. 

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Senator Collins and I are not going to let this one go. We want 

to see some indictments and some extraditions and some prosecutions. And this is just one of the scams that is going on, and it is 

a vulnerable population and that happens to be the subject matter 

of this committee. 

So with that thought, thank you all. Have a great day. The meeting is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:18 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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