Criminals have developed their social networking skills to such an extent that they can easily trick people into what is called Virtual Kidnapping, with the aim of extorting money from the family of the "alleged" victim.
How is virtual kidnapping done?
The scam relies on the criminal’s power of persuasion to force someone to isolate themselves from their family. The next step is to notify the family that a member has been kidnapped and will be tortured if they do not pay the ransom they are demanding. The family tries to find the member, but in vain since they cannot communicate. Cutting off communication is the first step in making the family believe that this is a real kidnapping.
The FBI released the case of Joe Ramirez, a retired police officer, who fell victim to this scam in Cancun, Mexico, in December 2013. Although he was an experienced police officer, he was convinced that his life was in danger and that he needed to buy a new cell phone and change hotels, two incidents that cut off communication with his family.
Although we live in an era where there are many ways to communicate, we use one or two of them in our daily lives. If we take someone's cell phone for example, then its owner feels lost and unable to communicate.
In Ramirez's case, the Virtual Kidnapping scam went like this. He received a call at 1 a.m. from someone claiming to be affiliated with the Zeta cartel and that he needed to pay $10,000/€8,000. Having a lot of information about the victim, the criminal threatened to frame him for drug possession and murder.
The entire scam took place over three days, during which Ramirez was instructed to change hotels, throw away his cell phone, and withdraw the money from his bank. The incident ended when the victim's wife notified local authorities after losing contact with her husband.
The FBI took action and finally the Ramirez case had a happy ending. In such cases, great care is needed both in whom we trust on the Internet, and in family members who we believe may be isolated and convinced to cut themselves off from their own family. The danger lurks, but with the right information from the Authorities we can protect ourselves. There are special programs so that people are properly informed about safety when browsing the Internet.
