Ex-cashier at FLA office sentenced for ‘skimming’ debit cards
KINGSTON, Jamaica — A former cashier at the Firearm Licensing Authority’s office in Montego Bay, St James has been sentenced to a suspended prison term and ordered to pay a fine after she admitted to stealing debit card information from customers.
Claudine Morgan was ordered to pay a fine of $100,000 or six months imprisonment at hard labour on the charge of possession of data device, on May 29. She was also sentenced to six months imprisonment at hard labour suspended for two years on the charge of possession of identity information.
The sentence was handed down after she pleaded guilty in the St James Resident Magistrate’s Court to charges laid against her by the Revenue Protection Division (RPD) under the Cybercrimes Act. This is the first such conviction for the RPD under this legislation.
Morgan, who was arrested and charged in September 2013, reportedly used a ‘skimming’ device to capture data from debit cards presented to her by people paying for firearm licences.
The full investigation revealed that the information obtained was passed to others and the affected customers were subsequently defrauded of sums by way of ATM withdrawals.