A SENIOR federal agent in the United States yesterday guaranteed the US Senate Special Committee on Aging that Jamaicans would be extradited to stand trial for their role in the lottery scam.

Vance Callender, the operations chief for Mexico and Canada at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said lottery-scam investigations are massive as there are thousands of victims and that the investigations require "very slow and diligent" documentation of hundreds, if not thousands, of wire transfers they have made.

"Extradition investigations are forthcoming," Callender said when asked by committee Chairman Bill Nelson what it was going to take to "get an indictment here on what's going on there".

Callender said agents from Jamaican Operations Linked to Telemarketing (JOLT), the multi-agency international task force established to combat Jamaica-based telemarketing fraud operations that prey on American citizens - are working in the US and in Jamaica to put together cases but declined to give details, saying it could affect the investigations.

"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," Callender said.

The committee chairman, recognising that information on the investigations could not be revealed in public, requested that he along with ranking member Susan Collins be briefed on anticipated extraditions.

He said they wanted to "make sure that this is getting ready and is getting prepared to go in front of a grand jury for an indictment".

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com