Global Courant
MEXICO CITY — As many as eight young workers died Tuesday in Mexico after they apparently tried to quit their jobs at a call center run by a violent drug cartel that targeted Americans in a real estate scam.
US and Mexican officials confirmed the brutal story that unfolded late last month when relatives of the youths reported them missing after they failed to return from work at an office near the western city of Guadalajara. Suspicions arose last week when piles of chopped-up body parts were found in plastic bags.
Forensic investigators in the western state of Jalisco said in a statement Monday that tests had confirmed the bodies belonged to the missing call center employees.
A total of six men and two women were reported missing between May 20 and May 22, but forensic investigators did not report the number of confirmed identities. There were doubts whether any of the young people were with the bodies found.
While the families thought their children worked in a normal call center, the office was in fact run by the Jalisco New Generation cartel, Mexico’s most violent gang. The cartel has grown beyond its traditional activities of drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping.
Officials confirmed that the cartel now operates call centers that swindle money from Americans and Canadians through bogus offers to buy their timeshares.
Jalisco officials gave no motive for the workers’ murder, all but two were under the age of 30. But a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter said that it seemed that the youths were murdered. by the Jalisco Cartel after they tried to quit their jobs.
“The best guess is that these kids decided they wanted to leave the company,” the US official said, adding that the cartel “sent a message to other defectors.”
“It looks like this has happened before,” the official added.
The Jalisco Cartel, known by its initials as the CJNG, is known for its ruthless treatment of alleged traitors, informers, or defectors. For those who knowingly or unknowingly worked for the cartel, it seems like an unwritten rule that death or prison is the only way out of the gang.
An activist group for families of the disappeared, “Por Amor a Ellxs” – roughly “For Love of Them” – said there are about 15,000 missing in Jalisco, out of a total of about 112,000 nationwide.
Call centers are a major source of employment in Mexico for young people or migrants who may have learned English in the United States but have returned to Mexico.
The timeshare fraud came to light in April, when the U.S. 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 town of Puerto Vallarta, also located in the state of Jalisco, home of the gang. turf.
Brian E. Nelson, U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in an April statement that the “CJNG’s deep involvement in timeshare fraud in the Puerto Vallarta area and elsewhere, which often targets older U.S. citizens and can defraud victims of their savings, is a major revenue stream that supports the group’s overall criminal enterprise.”
The scammers contacted people who wanted to sell timeshares in Puerto Vallarta properties.
In a 2023 alert, the FBI said sellers had been contacted via email by scammers saying they had a buyer lined up, but the seller had to pay taxes or other fees before the deal could go through. Apparently the deals evaporated once the money was paid.
The FBI report said that in 2022, the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center “received more than 600 complaints involving losses of approximately $39.6 million from victims approached by scammers related to timeshares in Mexico.”
Ryan Donner, a realtor at Ryan Donner & Associates, a Puerto Vallarta real estate firm, said his firm had been approached for help over the past two years by two people who were apparently targeted by the scam.
“It doesn’t happen very often, but yes, we’ve been through it,” said Donner, who was able to dissuade both people from the scam before paying any money.
Donner described the fraud as highly sophisticated.
He said the scammers sent potential sellers fake contracts and official-looking documents from the Mexican tax authorities, apparently saying that taxes were due on the future 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 they have a buyer for a property and they just need money, that’s a huge red flag because it’s kind of a scam,” Donner said. “Companies don’t usually work that way.”
