“Best guess is these kids had decided they wanted out of the business,” the US official said, adding the cartel was “sending a message to other defectors”.
“It appears this has happened before,” the official added.
The Jalisco cartel, known by its initials as the CJNG, is famous for its ruthless treatment of supposed traitors, informants or turncoats. For those who have worked for the cartel, knowingly or unknowingly, it appears to be an unwritten rule that the only way out of the gang is death or prison.
An activist group for families of the disappeared, “Por Amor a Ellxs” — roughly, “For Love of Them” — said there are around 15,000 missing people in Jalisco, out of a total of about 112,000 nationwide.
Call centres are a major source of employment in Mexico for young people or migrants who may have learned English in the United States, but who have returned to Mexico.
The timeshare fraud came to light in April, when the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against members or associates of the Jalisco New Generation cartel who apparently ran a similar operation in the Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta, also located in Jalisco state, the gang’s home turf.
Brian E. Nelson, the US under secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement in April that the “CJNG’s deep involvement in timeshare fraud in the Puerto Vallarta area and elsewhere, which often targets elderly US citizens and can defraud victims of their life savings, is an important revenue stream supporting the group’s overall criminal enterprise.“
The scammers contacted people seeking to sell timeshares in Puerto Vallarta properties.
In a 2023 alert, the FBI said sellers were contacted via email by scammers who said they had a buyer lined up, but the seller needed to pay taxes or other fees before the deal could go through. Apparently, once the money was paid, the deals evaporated.
The FBI report said that in 2022, the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre “received over 600 complaints with losses of approximately $US39.6 million ($59 million) from victims contacted by scammers regarding timeshares owned in Mexico”.
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Ryan Donner, a broker at Ryan Donner & Associates, a real estate firm in Puerto Vallarta, said his firm had been asked for assistance by two people over the last two years who were apparently targeted by the scam.
“It’s infrequent, but yes, we have had it happen,” said Donner, who was able to steer both people away from the scam before they paid any money.
Donner described the fraud as very sophisticated.
He said the scammers sent prospective sellers fake contracts and official-looking documents from the Mexican tax authority apparently saying taxes were due on the prospective sale.
“They have contracts, they have documents that appear to be official documents, it would be very easy to fall into the trap of paying them,” Donner said.
“If a company contacts someone to say that they have a buyer for a property and all they need is money, that is a huge red flag for it being some sort of scam,” Donner said. “That’s not how companies usually work.”
AP
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