📰 From the news · Impersonating a real college/agent
A white coat, a hospital ID and J$2.5 million collected for operations that never happened: the "Dr Clarke" case at Spanish Town Hospital
The Caribbean appears on this site mostly for its offshore medical schools. Jamaica's most recent fake-doctor case is a reminder that the region's public hospitals face the ordinary version of the problem too.
According to the Jamaica Gleaner and the Jamaica Star, Andrew Clarke, 58, was sentenced in October 2025 to more than six years in prison after pleading guilty to four counts of obtaining money by false pretence and uttering forged documents; the Crown withdrew a charge of impersonating a doctor. Police had received information in November 2024 that a "Dr Clarke" had collected more than J$2 million from people for medical services he never provided, and arrested him on the compound of Spanish Town Hospital dressed in a uniform and carrying a doctor's identification card. The amounts in the case, the Gleaner reported, included J$1.7 million from one complainant, J$600,000 from another and J$250,000 from two more. The Gleaner had earlier reported the same man's arrest in connection with alleged visa fraud, and a court ordered a psychiatric evaluation before trial. The Gleaner's columnist Garth Rattray wrote in 2025 that the case exposed how few consequences Jamaica attaches to impersonating a doctor.
The mechanism deserves attention because it worked inside a hospital. The uniform and the badge were enough for patients' families to hand over money for surgery; nobody asked the hospital whether "Dr Clarke" was on its staff, and the hospital, which had not employed him, did not know he was on its grounds.
For a student, the transferable lesson is about credentials that live in a place rather than in a register. A person in a hospital corridor, an office in a university building, a desk at a "counselling centre" on a college campus: location lends authority that the institution has not granted. Ask the institution. A hospital's administration, like a university's admissions office, can tell you in one call whether the person taking your money is theirs.
Were you affected by this case, or something like it? Report it with your own evidence, or tell your story — first-person accounts are what stop the next family.
This is a news-sourced case summary written by the TrustMBBS team, not a first-person account; see the sources above. They reflect one person's experience and are not a verdict on any institution. Report your own: Report a scam or tell your story.