MEXICO CITY—At least eight teenage employees were confirmed dead in Mexico on Tuesday after attempting to quit employment at a contact center run by a deadly drug cartel that preyed on Americans in a real estate fraud.
The tragic scenario that unfolded late last month when families of the boys reported them missing after they did not return from work in an office in the western city of Guadalajara was confirmed by US and Mexican officials. Last week, tons of hacked-up body parts were discovered in plastic bags, raising suspicions.
In a statement issued Monday, forensic examiners in the western state of Jalisco claimed that testing had proved the remains belonged to the missing contact center workers.
Six males and two women were reported missing between May 20 and May 22, however forensic examiners could not specify how many confirmed IDs there were. There had been some uncertainties over whether one of the teenagers was among the dead discovered.
While the parents thought their children were working at a regular contact center, the company was actually controlled by the Jalisco New Generation cartel, Mexico's most dangerous group. The cartel's traditional business of drug trafficking, extortion, and abduction has expanded.
Officials stated that the gang now runs contact centers that defraud Americans and Canadians by making false offers to acquire their timeshares.
Officials in Jalisco provided no explanation for the deaths of the workers, all of whom were under the age of 30.
The Jalisco cartel, abbreviated as the CJNG, is notorious for its harsh punishment of alleged traitors, informants, or turncoats. with individuals who have intentionally or unknowingly worked with the cartel, it appears to be an unwritten rule that the only way out is death or prison.
The activist organization "Por Amor an Ellxs"—roughly, "For Love of Them"—said there are around 15,000 missing individuals in Jalisco, out of a total of approximately 112,000 countrywide.
Call centers are a key source of work in Mexico for young people or migrants who have acquired English in the United States but have returned to their home country.
The timeshare scam was discovered in April, when the U.S. The Treasury Department issued fines on individuals or affiliates of the Jalisco New Generation cartel who allegedly ran a similar operation in Puerto Vallarta, a Pacific coast resort in Jalisco state, the gang's home territory.
In an April statement, Brian E. Nelson, the United States' Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said that the "CJNG's deep involvement in timeshare fraud in the Puerto Vallarta area and elsewhere, which often targets elderly U.S. citizens and can defraud victims of their life savings, is an important revenue stream supporting the group's overall criminal enterprise."
The fraudsters contacted customers who were looking to sell timeshares in Puerto Vallarta.
The FBI stated in a 2023 advisory that fraudsters contacted vendors through email and said they had a buyer lined up, but the seller needed to pay taxes or other fees before the purchase could go through. The transactions, it appears, vanished once the money was paid.
The FBI report said that in 2022, the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center “received over 600 complaints with losses of approximately $39.6 million from victims contacted by scammers regarding timeshares owned in Mexico.”
Ryan Donner, a broker at Ryan Donner & Associates, a real estate business in Puerto Vallarta, said his firm had been requested for help by two clients who were presumably targeted by the scam in the previous two years.
“It’s infrequent, but yes, we have had it happen,” said Donner, who was able to steer both people away from the scam before they paid any money.
Donner called the scam as "highly sophisticated."
He claimed that the scammers emailed prospective sellers bogus contracts and official-looking paperwork purporting to be from the Mexican tax office, claiming that taxes were owed on the proposed transaction.
"They have contracts, documents that appear to be official documents, and it would be very easy to fall into the trap of paying them," Donner added.
"If a company contacts someone to say they have a buyer for a property and all they need is money, that is a huge red flag for it being some sort of scam," Donner said. "That's not how most businesses operate."
“They have contracts, they have documents that appear to be official documents, it would be very easy to fall into the trap of paying them,” Donner said.
“If a company contacts someone to say that they have a buyer for a property and all they need is money, that is a huge red flag for it being some sort of scam,” Donner said. “That’s not how companies usually work.”
