Since we broke the story about the mass identity theft and the Moneygram money laundering scam last night – the stories of affected persons have come gushing forward. We have spoken with dozens of people whose names, addresses and driver’s license numbers were caught up in an international money laundering operation without them even knowing. And the only reason they found out is because this week, police officers attached to the Financial Intelligence Unit have been visiting those persons whose names were used to ask them if they’ve received any Moneygram transfers. Almost all say no, only to find that there’s a Moneygram receipt with their name, address and drivers license number on it.
The receipts are for cash transfers ranging from a few hundred to thousands of dollars, received from unknown persons in different parts of the United States, sent in their name and then collected in Belize by persons fraudulently using their personal particulars from their Belize City drivers licenses. At this time it is not known whether duplicate licenses were printed or if the only the information was stolen.
How big is it? Trust us, it’s huge. 7News has confirmed that the names used include the Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit, Marilyn Williams, the Governor of the Central Bank, Glenford Ysaguirre, at least three Belize City councillors, a number of media personalities, a judge, and, get this, the name of the Prime Minister, Dean Barrow. That’s right, they stole and used even the PM’s name and personal particulars from the drivers’ license database. The scale of it is almost incomprehensible, and the numbers? Well, the Financial Intelligence Unit says hundreds, but the fact is that it’s so many boxes of transactions that they haven’t even added it all up yet.
We spoke via telephone with Director Marilyn Williams who told us she could not go into details but told us city residents have every fight to feel outraged.
Marilyn Williams, Director – FIU
“At this time Jules because this matter is before the court I can’t go into details in terms of what we are doing in the investigation because I don’t want to compromise my case. What I can say is that while FIU recognizes and sympathizes with the fact that the Belizean public are angry and they are a little bit about the fact that their identifies have been used, I want to assure the public that we have taken that into consideration and hence the reason why we moved when we did back in January and we closed the operation of money laundering in the immediate so that there could be no question of any further inappropriate use of people’s identity. What we are trying to do now is to wrap up the investigation so that the matter can successfully go before the court and we are hoping for a successful conclusion so that finally everyone’s mind can be put to rest that there will not be a furtherance of this kind of activity.”
Jules Vasquez,
Do you all have any idea of the number of people who were unknowingly caught up in this scam, had their identities used in this fraudulent operation?
Marilyn Williams,
“I don’t have a specific number but I can tell you that it runs in the hundreds.”
Jules Vasquez,
Would you say that you all are aware of how it is that apparently the database of driver licenses was compromised?
Marilyn Williams,
“We don’t know and at this point, one it would be nice if we could get that information. It is not germane to the progress of our case. We know that it was obtained, we know that it is an illegal database.”
Jules Vasquez,
Miss Williams I know a broad cross section of Belizeans had their names fraudulently used, might you have been involved, was your name used?
Marilyn Williams,
“Actually yes I can say that my name was used.”
Jules Vasquez,
And how does that make you feel on a personal level?
Marilyn Williams,
“Actually it makes me very angry.”
Jules Vasquez,
Should people be concerned that there name might somehow be wrongly but effectively tied to an international money laundering operation?
Marilyn Williams,
“I don’t want to comment on that at this point Jules, again it would not be appropriate for me to make a comment on that at this point. That would be giving out too many, just way too much details with respect to my case.”
