Virtual Kidnappings Arrests Made: 4 Things To Know About The Latin American Scam

As society evolves to adapt to the digital age, so are criminals. A group of callers from Tijuana, Mexico have been scamming people into giving money over the phone. Labeled "virtual kidnappers," these individuals are said to have collected at least $500,000 since 2007 according to federal investigators by pretending to have kidnapped the victim's loved ones. The Associated Press reports that four people involved in the telemarketing scheme have been arrested for picking up ransom payments in San Diego, according to indictment, and charged with wire fraud and other crimes. As couriers, the four arrested--Ruth Graciela Reygoza, 63, of Chula Vista; Maria del Carmen Pulido, 42, of East Los Angeles; and brothers Adrian Rocha, 25, and Juan Rocha, 23--are believed to have received 10 percent of the profit.

The federal investigators on the case have revealed that virtual kidnappers called from Mexico using 30 different San Diego phone numbers, asking for money to be wired. While the numbers they would call were random, the virtual kidnappers were targeting immigrants. Upon calling their target, they would tell them that they are holding a relative or loved one hostage who was heading to the U.S. illegally. But the simple truth is that the callers did not even know their targets, let alone have any acquaintance hostage. The virtual kidnappers reportedly made up to 5,000 calls a day. "They would just randomly run through a sequence of numbers, like 1 to 100," said Daniel Page, assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations unit in San Diego, according to the Associated Press. "They're just like your professional telemarketer. They have a script. 'You need to pay this money. If you don't, something's going to happen.'" Page added that the callers would take a gamble with each call, as they never really knew if the targets even had a loved one that was trying to cross over.

During their investigation, the authorities have discovered that the virtual kidnappers targeted immigrants in the Washington, D.C., area since the geographic location has a large population of Central American immigrants. What's more, many of these immigrants have relatives who are out of contact for a long period of time. But it's not just the D.C. area, as authorities have recorded a whole slew of such virtual kidnapping calls in Arizona in 2008. What sets these arrests apart from previous virtual kidnapping scams is that this is the first time arrests have been made. Page explains that the four arrests made are due to when the investigation first began in 2011, when a Fresno woman wired $2,5000 to a Walmart store in San Diego after her brother-in-law was kidnapped in Tijuana and beaten for days. Shortly thereafter, the woman received another call asking for money, but know that her brother-in-law was free, the woman contacted the Fresno police. The woman was asked by federal investigators to play along and this ultimately led to the arrest of a married couple, who pled guilty to money laundering charges. This one arrest led to a more comprehensive investigation that resulted in the four arrests made on Thursday of the couriers, who are all American citizens.

Here are four things to know about the virtual kidnapping scam: 1. The "Virtual kidnapping" scam may be new to the United States, but it is a common scam in Latin America, especially in Mexico, Brazil and Guatemala. Essentially, areas where the crime rates are high are the most targeted locations since the victims are more likely to believe a random caller telling them that a family members has been kidnapped. 2. In Latin America, the scams are often being conducted by prison inmates with smuggled cellphones.The inmates do their research by searching for information on social networking websites. With this kind of information, they can easily convince their targets that they have kidnapped family members. 3. The virtual kidnappers call around 5,000 people a day, hoping that one target will take the bait. And when one target does, they can make anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000. 4. While the American scam raked in at least $500,000, the virtual kidnapping scams in Latin America scams citizens out of millions.