Jamaican National Arrested in the U.S. for Role in Lottery Scam

  On August 14, 2013, U.S. law enforcement officials arrested Oneike Mickhale Barnett, a Jamaican national, in Orlando, Florida, who was indicted on August 9, 2012 by a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  The indictment alleges that he and his co-conspirators operated a lottery scam in Jamaica that fraudulently induced elderly victims in the U.S. to send them thousands of dollars to cover fees for alleged lottery winnings that victims had not, in fact, won.  The indictment forms part of the U.S. government’s crackdown on fraudulent lottery scams based in Jamaica.[1]