And like Williams, one of those outraged, affected persons is Amandala’s Associate Editor, Adele Ramos. Her identity was also stolen and used in the scam. Today Ramos told us she feels violated and vulnerable.
Adele Ramos, Identity Stolen
“Actually Jules it was quite funny. I called the FIU Director this morning to get some information for the story after you broke it on your newscast last night. I was trying to find out some information and so during the process of that conversation she said, well my officers are looking for you right now and I said what, and she said your name is on the list. And so I told her to please tell them to come by twelve because I plan leave at around that time and so they came and I was shown this transaction slip. It had my name, my address, my driver’s license number, the transfer was from a Felix Anongus in California, who I don’t know. $600 was supposed to be sent to me on December 12th, just in time for Christmas, I didn’t get it, and the net was supposed to be $1,172 Belize. At the bottom of the slip was a signature, they didn’t even attempt to forge my signature because it was legible and my signature isn’t legible and so obviously it is an outright fraud.
When I initially learnt of the story, the first two things that came to my mind was one, how is it that people’s information, private confidential information, could be used in transactions like these. It is not even being done here in Belize, the sender was from outside apparently, based on the transaction report. So is it that my personal information is out there circling the world? That’s scary. I feel violated because I trust them to guard that information. I asked one person well how is it that this information could have been stolen or given away and up to now I can’t get an answer, not even from the Director of the FIU. One person told me well somebody could have done it with a flash drive. I was stunned. You mean somebody can just walk into an office with a flash drive and steal the information of hundreds of Belizeans from all walks of life? It is incredible Jules, I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it.”
As we said we spoke with a few dozen other people, many of them well known whose names were fraudulently used. But that’s only a small sample and it brings into focus a few important issues. First, it’s clear that the driver license database was stolen. Who could have done this? Well, there a few possible suspects.
Inevitably suspicions will first go to Fultec Systems and Omni Services – sister companies that each have a foot in both Moneygram and the City’s Traffic Department. Fultec set up the current driver’s license system
for City Hall and launched it in February of 2003 and continues to service that system. While its sister company Omni Networks was the master agent, meaning the franchise owner for Moneygram in Belize.
We today spoke with Dean Fuller – the boss at both companies and he told us that the first thing he did this morning after last night’s news broke is hold a staff meeting to launch an internal investigation to see if any of his staff could have been involved. Fuller confirmed that FULTEC has been retained to service the traffic department’s computer systems in the past – but again, he has to investigate. He characterized the City’s Driver’s License database as ill-fitted for any government institution and noted that it was lacking in security controls,
And as the master agent for Moneygram at Omni Networks, Fuller said he was not involved in Moneygram and a subsidiary named money services was operating that. Fuller said he was never aware of the vast volume of transactions at the Moneygram sub-agency run by the Coye’s. Highly places sources in the investigations, tell us that the Coye’s experienced phenomenal growth in the volume of transactions between December 2007 and March 2008 – and to not see it, one have had to be, quote, “willfully blind.”
Omni has ended its relationship with Moneygram but out sources suggest that may have been a mutual discontinuation. So apart from Fultec who set up and serviced the system, who else all has access to the database at the city Traffic Department? Former Councilor Dean Samuels told us that only the department’s Information Technology staff has regular and unrestricted access to the database since they operate and regularly update it.
And while all this swirls, the FIU continues to conduct a very complex international money laundering investigation over multiple jurisdictions – and it does so with only a handful of staff and a few police officers.
It all started when acting on information received, the FIU raided the home of the Coye’s on Johnson Street on New Year’s Eve 2008 and found 1.5 million dollars in cash stuffed in suitcases. The Coye’s operated a Moneygram subagency at the corner of Mahogany Street and Central American Boulevard. The Financial Intelligence Unit say the money is the product of laundering but the Coye family says they are legitimate business people and they just didn’t have time to go to the bank.
