MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica’s tourist capital, is also a hub for call centres. Many work for American companies. But they have less respectable step-siblings: people who scam gullible Americans and brawl with each other over the proceeds. The worlds of scamming and tourism collided on January 18th, when the government declared a state of emergency in St James, the parish whose capital is Montego Bay.
Its murder rate is three times Jamaica’s and 50 times that of New York City. Last year 335 people died violently in a district with a population of 185,000. Britain and Canada have told tourists to limit their movements outside gated resorts.
One cause of the mayhem is scams in which callers, using skills honed at St James’s call centres and contact lists purloined from them, ring up mainly elderly Americans to tell them they’ve won a lottery. The prize is fictitious; the fees paid by the victim to claim it are not.
The scam has lower barriers to entry than the business...Continue reading
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