“The economic downtrend which reduced the number of guest workers particularly from China has greatly lowered the risk of organized crimes on Saipan,” said special agent Joseph Auther of the Federal Bureau of Investigation-Saipan Resident Agency.
“The economic downfall has resulted in the closure of garment factories and other business establishments in the CNMI, and thousands of the workers, particularly from China went back to their own country,” Auther said.
He said since 2004, there has been no prosecution on organized crimes, illegal gambling, loan sharking and prostitution.
He added that from 2003 to 2004 there were six prosecutions for loan sharking but there had been no more prosecutions since then.
“The decline of the Chinese population and the economic crisis hurt the organized crimes here because it resulted to fewer targets, and the ‘get-rich-quick’ schemers have to move out to areas which have more targets,” Auther said.
He said another possible organized crime activity that existed in the CNMI but to a lesser extent was the Nigerian e-mail scam.
He said this involved perpetrators who recruited people from Saipan by placing advertisements in the local papers looking for bookkeepers and other home-based work to earn money.
Auther cited as example a company who an placed an advertisement in a local paper last year recruiting for part-time book keepers.
He said that when interested applicants responded to the advertisement, they were directed to a U.K.-based company selling artwork and the applicants were expected to help cash some checks from U.S. banks in return for a certain commission.
Auther was one of the presenters during yesterday’s session of the annual meeting of police executives from Micronesia at the Saipan World Resort Saipan.
The conference will end on Thursday.
