The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a warning about a rise in Mexican cartels using timeshare fraud scams to target American timeshare owners.
Victims of these fraud scams have lost a combined sum of over $300 million, according to the FBI statement.
“Cartels have operated the most reported timeshare frauds involving properties in Mexico,” Assistant Special Agent in Charge Paul Roberts said in the statement. “The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the Gulf Cartel, and the Sinaloa Cartel have been running timeshare fraud schemes to help fund their illicit efforts for over 10 years. To date, the FBI believes that CJNG has been the predominant cartel engaging in timeshare frauds in Mexico, based on complaint reporting and financial tracing. However, independent call centers in Mexico are also likely engaging in this crime.”
The statement mentions how the Mexican cartel scammers often strategically ask victims to take certain actions regarding their timeshare. Scammers often ask victims to “exit their timeshare” “rent out their timeshare property” or “invest in share certificates for their timeshare.”
Certain states such as Pennsylvania are trying to protect elders from more financial abuse incidents, as The Center Square previously reported.
Elderly populations are particularly at risk to fall victim to scams. The timeshare fraud scams are primarily aimed at older American people, according to the FBI’s statement.
“The scammers often claim the initial scammers have been either charged with fraud or held civilly liable in a U.S.- or Mexico-based lawsuit, and that the victims are owed restitution in the settlement,” Roberts said in the statement. “However, in order to access that restitution money, the victims are told they must pay legal or court fees to the law firms. The scammers then defraud the victims of a series of advance fees related to the settlement, again using fake documents to bolster their credibility.”
These timeshare scams are not the only scams targeting older people. Many elder fraud cases have been on the rise in the past year.
Elder fraud complaints to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (or IC3) increased by 14% last year, according to a statement from the FBI about their IC3 2023 Elder Fraud Report.
Tech support scams were the most prominent types of elder fraud that were reported last year, according to the statement.
“Nearly 18,000 victims aged 60 and over reported such scams to IC3,” the statement said. “Personal data breaches, confidence and romance scams, non-payment or non-delivery scams, and investment scams rounded out the top five most common types of elder fraud reported to IC3 last year.”
