Bob Sullivan

“The cartel just very quickly, easily, and efficiently made an example of them by leaving their body parts in 48 bags outside of the city….They’re good at making high profile, gruesome examples of those who would defy them.”

I’ve spent many years writing about Internet crime, so I don’t spook easily.  After working on this week’s podcast, I’m spooked.

For the last year or two, I’ve had a gathering sense of doom about the computer crime landscape. I hear about scams constantly, but something has seemed different lately. The dollar figures seem higher, the criminals more relentless, the cover stories far more sophisticated. Thanks to fresh reporting and statistics, I am now fairly certain I’m not being paranoid. Increasingly, Internet scams are being run by organized crime organizations that combine the dark side of street gangs with Fortune 500 sales tactics.   I will share numbers in a moment, but stories are always needed to make a point this important, and that’s why we bring you “James’ ” harrowing tale this week.  He wanted to sell an old, useless timeshare, but instead had $900,000 stolen from him — by the New Generation Jalisco Cartel in Mexico. That same group was blamed for murdering call center workers and spreading their body parts around Jalisco.

 This episode offers a rare chance to hear a scam in action. James recorded some of his calls with criminals and shared them with us.  ‘Show me, don’t tell me’ is the oldest advice in storytelling, and that’s why I really hope you’ll listen.  As you hear criminals who go by the names “Michael” and “Jesus” badger and manipulate James, your skin will crawl, as mine did. But I hope it will also place a memory deep in your limbic brain, so when you inevitably find yourself on the phone with such a criminal one day, an autonomic defensive reaction will kick in.

For this episode, I also spoke with a remarkable journalist named Steve Fisher. An American from rural Pennslyvania, he worked in farms as a youth, learned a lot about the plight of migrant workers, and that led him to take a post as an investigative journalist in Mexico City covering crime gangs.  Fisher recently wrote about a victim like James who thought he was unloading an unwanted timeshare, but instead had $1.8 million stolen during a decade of interactions with the cartel. In that victim’s case, about 150 different cartel “workers” interacted with him. I can’t begin to stress how vast this conspiracy is — how detailed the cartel’s record-keeping must be — in order to carry on this kind of ongoing crime. As we point out in the story, timeshare scams have become so profitable that this dangerous Mexican cartel is trading in drug running operations for call centers.  The gruesome methods of control remain, however.

This model is replicated around the world.  From India, there are tech support scams. From Jamaica, we get sweepstakes fraud. From Southeast Asia, cryptocurrency scams.  From Africa, romance scams.

(Of course, there are scams operated in the U.S., too, but those criminals don’t enjoy the natural protection that international boundaries and jurisdictional challenges provide).

I know most of us imagine scam criminals sitting in dark, smoke-filled boiler rooms placing 100s of calls every day desperately hunting for single victims.  That’s not how it works any more. Scam call center “employees” work in cubicles  (though in some cases, they are victims of human trafficking).  They have fine-tuned software; they work from lead lists; they have well-researched sales scripts; they have formalized training. And they succeed, very often.

The numbers bear this out. Theft through fraud has surged over the last five years, with losses jumping from $2.4 billion in 2019 to more than $10 billion in 2023. Of course, many scam losses are never reported, so the real number could easily be four or five times that.

But I trust my own ears, and you should too.  Recently, I have heard a pile of stories from victims in my larger social circle.  Plenty of near misses — friends who tell me they got a call from a “sheriff” about an arrest summons that was so believable they were driving to a bitcoin ATM before something triggered skepticism.  Unfortunately, I hear plenty of heartbreaking stories too, of people who bought gift cards or sent crypto before that skepticism kicked in.

I want you to listen for these stories in your life. Look for them in your social feeds, ask for them at family parties. I bet you leave this exercise just as concerned as I am. Scams have become big businesses, operated by large, sophisticated crime gangs all over the world. It’s time to talk with your friends and family about this.

We can’t educate our way out of this problem.  There’s a lot more than U.S. financial institutions, regulators, and law enforcement can do to slow the massive growth of fraud.  But at the moment, you are the best defense for yourself and the people you love.

To that end, I would like to suggest you listen to this week’s episode and share it with people you care about. I can tell you that scams are up, and that criminals are so persuasive anyone can be vulnerable. But there is nothing like hearing it for yourself.

Be careful out there.

You can listen to part 1 of our series by clicking here. And part two is at this link.