AUDIO: Security worries for remittance companies

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter

Remittance companies say more than 270,000 suspicious transactions have been reported to the Financial Investigations Division (FID) since the start of the year.

Under the law, financial institutions are required to report suspicious transactions to the FID.

Speaking at a Jamaica National anti-lottery scam forum yesterday head of the FID, Justin Felice said his team was finding it hard to analyse the huge volumes of suspicious transactions because of human resources constraints.

He said this was compounded by the fact that the information has to be processed manually.

In the meantime, Leesa Kow, the president of Jamaica Money Remitters Association, says members are facing a significant cost for security as a response to scamming activities.

She says additional security measures to clamp down on the use of remittance companies for illegal activities have put staff in the "firing line" of scammers.

In August, Western Union International ordered its operators in St James to close their businesses until they implement security measures to combat the multi billion-dollar lottery scamming industry.

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