New Kingston Town - Introduction

_{Source: AI}

Introduction

Jamaica was a somewhat peaceful country, the scammers, druggist and shottaz of the early to mid 2,000s had mostly gone into hiding with the introduction of digital IDs and central bank digital currencies. I remember in 2030 once the world came off physical money completely, dons started dropping out like baldpates at bird bush. The money was so easy to trace that not even a mobile VPN, frequency blockers or burner phones could save them. The money was traced form the "clients" they scammed in North America right back to the push cart vendor in the ghetto. And most of the times the "people" the scammers were talking to weren’t even people. Nothing got pass Bobylon. It became the literal web in which we all got caught and the spider would devour anyone who went against its rules.

The only good thing was there was some peace, but it reminded me of living in Japan. I did my degree in Computer science at Tokyo University and while the country was peaceful, a gloom of blue around many people let you know they weren't genuinely happy. When I came back to Kingston, that same smurf blue could be seen on the sunshine faces. The street vendors who once got away without paying taxes on their sales could no longer get away with this form of survival. Many went back to the old ways of bartering to avoid the system as much as possible.

But of course the old massa names remained wealthy through the transition and became even more influential. Who would have thought the cashless society, digital IDs and AI would take hold so fast. We should have seen it coming, we did but we weren't prepared. How would you prepare? That is the question the rich and the poor answer differently.

For once the government was in full control not needing the gun toting shottaz to carry out their dirty work. In fact, they got rid of most of them with the help of the US government but more so, the asset freezing technology the central bank digital currencies came equipped with.

"Bombolcaat dem freeze Foota, him cyah do nothing now"

The word freeze, cold and ice took on a whole new meaning.

The few shottaz who remained weren't your average drive by shooting thugs, they were much more sophisticated and were birthed at the tail-end of the lottery scam era, right into the digital currency evolution.