Above: Justice Minister Mark Golding (right) (JIS Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Jamaica’s government will soon have a first draft of a bill dealing with the ongoing problem of lottery scammers in the country, according to Justice Minister Sen. Mark Golding.

The draft should be done by the end of this month, he said.

“Our laws our somewhat dated in this regard, and haven’t really provided the necessary tools to enable effective prosecution of those activities,” Golding said last week.

The Evidence (Special Measures) Act, which has passed in the Senate, will also be used to help the fight against lottery scamming, he said.

That act introduces measures that can be used to facilitate the provision of evidence by vulnerable witnesses, including by video and audio technology.

The government first announced the plan for the anti-lotto-scam legislation in April.

At the time, Jamaica’s government said that each day, nearly 30,000 calls are made into the United States by Jamaican criminals attempting to commit fraud by luring US nationals into the lottery schemes.

Jamaicans involved in lotto scamming have earned approximately $300 million USD each year from the enterprise, according to government figures.

In April, the government also announced the creation of a Web site, www.bewareof876.com (876 is Jamaica’s area code), aimed at warning of the potential danger of lotto scammers.