Please warn your elderly relatives about the lottery scam

[malaise]

in Jamaica.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090529/lead/lead4.html
<snip>
Faced with the stunning realisation that her ageing parents had been conned out of their US$300,000 (approximately J$26.7 million) life savings by Jamaican lottery-scam artists, a South Florida nurse is now in shock and distress.

"They really conned my mom," said the nurse, whose 84-year-old father and 73-year-old mother live in the state of Illinois.

"I found out about it in the second week of March, but it had been going on since the end of December 2008."

According to the nurse, in just over one year since her parents fell prey to the Jamaican scammers - who used the trademark ruse that they had won a Jamaican lottery and needed to pay a processing fee - the savings they had accumulated have all but disappeared.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hX86RmlEMBDU_A32p47xBHSgDZOAD98E2OOG0
<snip>
Americans sent more than $30 million to this Caribbean island last year to claim winnings in a Jamaican lottery. The trouble is there was no such contest.

Scam artists are making Jamaica a new center for internationally known lottery schemes, aiding a network of violent gangs that authorities say are putting the money into drug and gun trafficking.

The U.S. and Jamaica are now teaming up for a task force dedicated to breaking up the cross-border schemes. A formal announcement of the project is planned for Wednesday.

"It's just an incredible amount of money that's coming down here," said Vance Callender, an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement attache at the U.S. Embassy in Kingston. "We've got cases from Honolulu to Maine."
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[emilyg]

1. ty