Tourists getting menacing calls in El Paso hotel rooms. Drug cartel threats showing up in text messages. Cloned voices.
Frightening virtual kidnapping phone scams keep evolving with technology in sophisticated schemes extending over the border, an El Paso FBI supervisor said.
The heart-pounding calls can begin with a woman or child crying under a terrifying false premise that a loved one was abducted, though there’s no actual kidnapping.
“They pull on those strings of fear, love and they want to keep you on the phone,” FBI Supervisory Special Agent Andres Hernandez said.
El Paso-area victims have lost a total of about $30,000 in phone extortion scams this year already and once the money is gone, it’s gone, Hernandez said Tuesday on a teleconference news briefing.
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In one case, a victim, falsely believing a family member was held hostage, walked over the border and deposited money into a Mexican ATM, Hernandez said.
“It’s very easy to get victims (in El Paso) because of the proximity to the border,” said Hernandez, supervisor of the FBI’s Violent Crimes and Major Offender Squad in El Paso.
There have been less than 15 phone extortion cases reported to the El Paso FBI this year. But the number of victims could be much higher because people often are too embarrassed to report that they were tricked, Hernandez said.
Virtual kidnappings continue in El Paso
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