A warning has come from the National Security Minister that cybercrime is on the increase in Jamaica.
Robert Montague says the scammers have become more sophisticated and are targeting critical sectors in the country, including the healthcare system.
Addressing a town hall meeting Thursday evening in Parottee, Black River, St. Elizabeth, the National Security Minister gave an update on the Romanian scam, which has resulted in several credit card holders being fleeced.
“About two months ago the police arrested 23 persons from Romania who were skimming credit cards and cloning credit cards in Jamaica.The police also arrested three youngsters, graduates of the University, who broke into two bans and broke into every health facility that was online, especially the labs and were able to copy the medical information of hundreds of Jamaicans and then send them a note, saying that if you do not lodge money at a certain bank at a certain time, they would expose their medical information.So right here in Jamaica we are treating with a serious matter, cybercrime,” Montague said.
On the issue of illegal guns, the National Seucirty Minister said headway is being made.
“Since the start of this year, we have collected 727 illegal weapons from the streets of Jamaica and over 20,000 rounds of ammunitions - and we don’t make guns and ammunition here. Forty percent of what we collected for the whole of 2016 and we are not yet done for 2017. That’s the magnitude of the problem.”
He noted that a special app has been developed to strengthen the clampdown.
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