By Gordon Williams, Contributor

'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust' may mean the solemn end of a funeral, but at many popular burial sites in Jamaica it is also the signal for graveside hustlers to start extorting money from the bereaved.

THE STAR has learned that graveside workers and people not connected with funeral parties have being pouncing on mourners, trying to get cash, even after they had already paid huge sums to take care of funeral expenses. In addition, the hustlers also charge people visiting cemeteries trying to find the grave site of loved ones buried in the past.

The hustling schemes have been going on for years and the representatives of the burial sites do not deny claims that they exist. Some have now taken steps to stop the practice.

Witness accounts revealed that among the cold-hearted hustlers are workers employed by the cemeteries, including those who dig graves, lower the coffins into them and cover them under concrete and dirt. They also include persons not connected to the burial party, but who show up well dressed to join the mourners, then beg money using concocted tales of woe.

Following a recent service at a well-known St. Catherine burial site, one of the workers, who are usually paid by the administrators of the cemetery, did not wait until mourners moved more than 10 yards from the gravesite before he approached a family member and demanded: "So what you goin' do fi mi boss?"

Shocked at the brazenness and timing of the approach, the family member refused to pay. The worker then turned away to approach another member of the funeral party with the same demand.

At that same funeral a well-dressed middle-aged woman was seen at the burial site using the same 'pitch' to solicit funds from several mourners. She told each one that she was hungry and thirsty and "only" needed $50 to buy some juice and a bun. After receiving $100 from one mourner, she sifted through the party and collected from several others.

Who is she?

None of the persons in the burial party recalled knowing who she was, whether she had any connection to the deceased, or having noticed her at the church service in Kingston hours earlier.

"It's disgusting," said an angry female mourner who attended a funeral earlier this month. "The body is not even properly buried and they're trying to rip you off."

The mourner said when she buried a relative at a cemetery in St. Catherine a few years ago, and again last year, she encountered the same problem. She said that after paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to bury the dead, mourners should not be subjected to harassment from unsympathetic hustlers at a time when they were most vulnerable. She said she reported the incidents to the administrators of the cemeteries.

When THE STAR checked with the cemetery administrators, they did not deny that the practice existed and admitted to receiving reports about them.

"You have one or two families who say they are asked for money to find the (burial) spot," said a senior female employee at a well-known St. Catherine cemetery.

She was adamant that the practice was "not a policy" of the cemetery's administrators and insisted that the company was trying to stop it by reprimanding or dismissing workers who engage in the scheme.

Workers for at least one cemetery are now required to wear numbers on their uniforms, partly to allow mourners to easily identify them if they try to extort money. "We are trying to cut this out," the employee said, adding later, "we are rigid on it."