Mexican Authorities Rescue Teen Who Was Recruited by the Sinaloa Cartel Through a Videogame

Drug trafficking organizations are constantly coming up with new ways to recruit members to their illicit enterprises. From fake job postings to propaganda shared on social media, criminal groups mostly target young people online as they lure them to join their ranks.

The latest move by the Sinaloa cartel is focused on recruiting through videogames. That is what happened to a 14 year-old teen from Oaxaca, who was approached by cartel members trough the game Free Fire, a free-to-play battle royale game developed for mobile devices.

According to reports from Infobae, the teen was recruited by the criminal organization and was on his way to Mazatlán when authorities found and rescued him.

Following a complaint from his family members, authorities activated protocols to start the search in the town of La Lobera, in the municipality of Santa Inés del Monte.

Oaxaca Attorney General Office Bernardo Rodríguez Alamilla worked along his Sinaloa counterpart to locate the teen. He said the Sinaloa cartel got in contact with the teenager through the online game, but authorities were able to find him as he was traveling on a bus with Mazatlán as its final destination.

Authorities were able to locate the minor thanks to his cellphone. "By using his cellphone's location, we were able to follow him all the way to Sinaloa. From there, we reconstructed the entire case," Rodríguez Alamilla said in a press conference.

Oaxaca's Attorney General said criminal groups get in contact with potential recruits in real time by using the mobile phone app. After establishing communications, they switch to social media accounts or instant-messaging apps to continue the recruiting process.

The teenager told authorities that the Sinaloa cartel had paid for his bus ticket and had made him promises of receiving a salary and free lodging. Rodríguez Alamilla said that the cartel's objective for targeting teenagers is to use them for sexual exploitation and other activities related to drug trafficking.

The official said that Free Fire is not the only game that cartels use to try and lure teenagers into making the trip to Sinaloa. Call of Duty Mobile, Roblox and Grand Theft Auto are other games used by criminal groups to target teenagers.

Recruiting through the internet

Although this is not a new practice, criminal groups have doubled their efforts to recruit new members with the help of social media and the internet.

Three years ago, authorities in Oaxaca rescued three minors that had been convinced by criminal groups to flee their homes and join their ranks.

Óscar Balderas, a Mexican journalist, told InSight Crime in 2021 that, after minors are invited to meet in person, they are kidnapped and forced to join the cartels.

"It might not look like the most efficient way to recruit gunmen...but it is a discreet way to do it," Balderas said. "It is a way to invite adolescents to reach out on their own will, to gain their trust," he added.

Mexican cartels have copied the modus operandi of terrorist groups that, according to a 2013 testimony from a former agent from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), they used games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life to recruit people.

In 2021, a Wall Street Journal investigation also revealed that the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) used Facebook to recruit new members through pages that promoted cartel propaganda on Facebook and Instagram pages.