Fake IDs, stolen titles

Five financial institutions have been fleeced of more than $600 million through an elaborate and complex fraudulent scheme allegedly involving an upper St Andrew medical doctor and two accomplices, using a litany of fictitious documents, law enforcement operatives have disclosed.

The suspects behind the fraudulent scheme, Chloe Douett, 30, a medical doctor who resides in Cherry Gardens, St Andrew; Ivana Campbell, 29, an executive assistant from Cedar Grove in Portmore, St Catherine; and Dwayne Pitter, 44, who is unemployed and is from Olympic Gardens, St Andrew, have all been charged with various crimes for their alleged roles, the authorities confirmed on Saturday..

The scheme was first made public last week when the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) announced the arrests of the three suspects during separate operations in Kingston and St James between January 13 and 16.

No details were publicly disclosed.

But according to one investigator, who is not authorised to speak publicly, the alleged scheme spans a 15-month period, starting in January 2023, and mainly involves the sale of a still-undetermined number of homes and other real estate properties without the knowledge or consent of the legitimate owners.

“For a scam like this to happen, you need multiple personalities and multiple fake IDs to bypass the multiple layers of identification verification instituted by some financial institutions, and that’s what makes this thing so impressive,” a law-enforcement source told The Sunday Gleaner.

The sale transactions reportedly involve the use of fictitious driver’s licences, birth certificates, marriage certificates, and taxpayer registration numbers in dozens of different names.

“The question is, where did these forged documents originate from? ... We don’t even know whether there is someone in these agencies creating false documents or somebody out a road can create documents that are so authentic that you can’t tell them different from the real thing,” said the investigator.

FICTITIOUS ‘ATTORNEY’

Some of the transactions were completed through an ‘attorney’, “who is a fictitious character that does not exist”, claimed the law-enforcement source.

“This persona they [allegedly] created was an attorney, [name redacted], who [ostensibly] has been practising for how many years, has his legal certificate, and is a registered attorney,” the source charged.

The top executive at one of the financial institutions that was allegedly defrauded declined to comment when contacted by The Sunday Gleaner on Saturday.

“The investigation is ongoing, and so it would be ill-advised for us to issue a statement in the middle of an investigation,” the executive said. “I understand people have been arrested, so it’s kind of premature for a statement at this stage.”

Explaining how the fraudulent scheme worked, the investigator who spoke with The Sunday Gleaner charged that the suspects “somehow” got access to the legitimate title for the house or property they had targeted.

Armed with false or forged identification, they allegedly visited the National Land Agency, pretending to be the legitimate owner, and requested a new ‘title’, claiming that the original document was damaged.

“Remember now, when I show up at NLA with a driver’s licence, marriage certificate, or birth certificate in the name of [redacted], they don’t have any reason to think I’m not the rightful owner,” said the investigator.

When the new title is issued, the property is then sold by one of the alleged fraudsters posing as the legitimate owner to an accomplice through a mortgage disbursed by a financial institution, claimed the investigator.

SOME IDs GENUINE

“They get a lump-sum payment and [name redacted] gets the mortgage. How is he able to qualify for the mortgage? Simple. He has a bag of fake IDs for fake businesses, fake pay slips, and fake bank records,” charged the investigator, who acknowledged that some of the IDs were genuine.

MOCA, the entity leading the investigation, confirmed in a statement yesterday that the multimillion-dollar scheme operated from January 2023 to April 2024 and described it as “one of the most elaborate, complex and brazen fraud … we have seen to date”.

The Financial Investigations Division and the police’s Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Division are also involved in the probe.

“The suspects relied on unprecedented levels of identity manipulation to defeat institutional safeguards and defraud legitimate financial institutions of hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Major Basil Jarrett, director of communications at MOCA.

“The three [persons charged] allegedly assumed the identities of multiple individuals with varying occupations to bypass security protocols and identity confirmation measures at a number of institutions in the financial sector.”

Jarrett praised the financial institutions for being “helpful and supportive” during the investigative process.

“We see them as victims, but we also see them as critical partners in our efforts as without their reporting and involvement, it becomes more difficult to track the new, creative, and innovative techniques that fraudsters are using today,” Jarrett said.

The three suspects were charged following separate interviews with investigators last Thursday.

Douett is facing charges of uttering forged documents, demanding property on forged documents, conspiracy to defraud, and failure to safely store a firearm, the statement from MOCA confirmed.

Campbell and Pitter have been charged with breaches of the Proceeds of Crime Act, the Larceny Act, the Law Reform (Fraudulent Transactions) Act, as well as conspiracy to defraud at common law.

Jarrett said the arrests mark a “major breakthrough” in a “very unique” case and underscore MOCA’s commitment and capacity to pursue “criminals who believe sophisticated fraud places them beyond the reach of the law”.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com