1/9/2024 0 Comments Random phone number in mexico![]() Two Houston individuals were coerced to drop roughly $28,000 – which couldn't be wired - in trash cans where Acosta collected the payment and transferred small amounts to several individuals in Mexico to then transfer to a Mexican prisoner believed to be running the scheme, according to the FBI.Īcosta was nabbed in June as part of the FBI's Operation Hotel Tango, where more than 80 victims were identified in California, Minnesota, Idaho and Texas. Acosta represents the first federal indictment in a virtual kidnapping case.įarah Baker, 16, uses her phone to tweet in her family's home in Gaza City, August 10, 2014. Charges were for wire fraud and money laundering. "The scheme is primarily perpetrated remotely and via phone, sometimes by a burner phone," Scheland said.Ī federal grand jury in Houston returned a 10-count indictment against Yanette Rodriguez Acosta, 34, of Houston, for her part in a virtual kidnapping scheme. The cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute because of untraceable evidence, Scheland said. "And then if you get scammed, there might be an element of shame that you fell for a scam or maybe you report it to the police, but you don't submit a report to the FBI." "People realize they are being scammed and immediately hang up and then they don't report it to us," Scheland said. Still, underreporting virtual kidnapping scammers is low across many ethnicities, Nora Scheland, an FBI spokeswoman with the National Press Office, said. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., March 9, 2017. ![]() People gather at the City College of New York (CCNY) to protest the immigration and deportation policies of the U.S. "The reality is that an undocumented person is more likely to be uncomfortable going to the authorities now than a year ago and that creates opportunities for criminals," Steinberg said. That's even more true under the Trump administration, which has threatened to deport undocumented immigrants in droves, Steinberg said. Undocumented immigrants were the main target because the likelihood of reporting the crime was low for fear of deportation, Steinberg said. If the victim can't quickly reach the friend or relative they believe is kidnapped, they'll usually pay up, according to the FBI. The victim sometimes unwittingly shouts out their loved ones name during random calls, giving the scammer more leverage. ![]() The unsuspecting victim who answers the phone sometimes hears a voice crying for help to make the scam seem real. REUTERS/Brendan McDermidįraudsters typically troll social media for victims to see when relatives are apart either because of work or travel and then they strike, Steinberg said. ![]() "When scams are successful, criminals continue to do them more and more and expand their reach," Steinberg told Newsweek.Īmir Rashidi, an Internet security researcher who has worked with Telegram users who were victims of hacking, works at the offices of International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., July 27, 2016. The scam has widened to randomly-dialed phone numbers because it works, FBI officials and cyber-security expert Joseph Steinberg said. The sums are usually small, sometimes a few hundred or up to $2,000, because people likely have the cash on hand and there are legal restrictions for wiring larger amounts across the border, cyber-security experts and FBI representatives said. Unlike actual abductions, virtual kidnappers-usually in Mexico-call an individual, threaten them and trick them into quickly wiring money to the scammer while still on the phone before the scheme falls apart. Virtual kidnapping scammers who previously extorted Hispanic foreigners into paying money in exchange for the release of a friend or relative who was never held captive have widened their sights to include random victims, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which launched a campaign in October to investigate the underreported crime happening since at least 2013. A terrifying trend that strictly targeted Spanish speakers and undocumented immigrants in Southwest border states into paying a ransom for seemingly kidnapped loved ones threatened with torture or death has broadened to include anyone, anywhere. ![]()
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