An operation carried out on January 14 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, ended with the dismantling of a call center dedicated to illicit activities; among them, fraud and telephone extortion.
According to the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Jalisco, the building, located on José María Lafragua and Medrano streets, in the Zona del Vestir, was closed and 12 people allegedly involved in the crimes were arrested.
According to the media La Silla Rota, this case has generated speculation about the possible links of this place with the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho”, since the modus operandi is reminiscent of other call centers that have also been dismantled in the region dominated by this criminal group.
During the operation, in which nearly 200 agents from various corporations participated, 52 cell phones, five laptops, 29 headsets, 53 notebooks, an agenda, three INE voter ID cards and five debit cards were seized.
These objects contained sensitive information of cardholders, mainly from the State of Mexico and Puebla. According to Milenio, the Jalisco prosecutor’s office continues to investigate to identify the victims and determine the extent of the fraud committed.
The detainees were also deceived
Five of the detainees, identified as Nubia Paloma “N”, Mónica Ilse “N”, Lucio Armando “N”, Jonathan Alejandro “N” and Nalleli Saraí “N”, were linked to the process for the crime of bribery, after they tried to bribe the agents to avoid their arrest.
The judge ordered justified preventive detention for one year while the investigation is carried out. The ages of the accused range between 19 and 25 years; Meanwhile, the prosecution continues to analyze their level of involvement in illegal activities.
Although most of the records found contained only telephone numbers and not names, it is expected that this data will allow the identification of more victims and possible perpetrators. In addition, a new investigation file is being compiled for the crime of fraud.
Some of the detainees were deceived, as were the victims of the fraud. According to the testimonies of those involved, several of them arrived at the place after responding to job offers related to the sale of clothing online. This without knowing that they were actually going to be part of a telephone fraud operation.
When they arrived at the place, they realized that the real job consisted of making calls to people making them believe that they were bank employees.
According to the statements of some of the detainees, the payment at the fraudulent call center ranged between 1,000 and 1,500 pesos per day. This suggests that, depending on performance or the number of calls they managed to complete, employees could earn between 7,000 and 10,500 pesos a week.
In images shown by the prosecution, it can be seen that these people also had to comply with a “regulation”, among whose rules were: “No meth, no eating; no caps; respect entry time; do not enter or leave during working hours; do not smoke meth; do not argue in pairs; leave equipment in its place” and more.
The scheme used by this call center was based on vishing and phishing techniques, designed to deceive victims and gain access to their bank accounts.
The operators posed as representatives of banking institutions and alerted victims about supposedly suspicious movements in their accounts. Under the pretext of solving the problem, they persuaded people to download a mobile application that, in reality, allowed them to remotely access their bank accounts. This gave them the possibility of making transfers, withdrawals or using the funds illegally.
According to their testimonies, the calls were transferred between employees through a switchboard.
Suspicions about the CJNG
In May 2023, human remains were discovered in a ravine in the Mirador Escondido neighborhood in Zapopan. The victims were eight young people who worked in two fraudulent call centers allegedly linked to the CJNG, where timeshare packages were offered as part of a fraud scheme.
In April 2023, the United States Department of State issued an alert about timeshare scams coordinated by the CJNG, leading to sanctions against eight Mexican companies linked to these activities. According to investigations, the disappearance and murder of the young people could have been a reprisal for the leak of information.
In 2023, journalist Óscar Balderas published the testimony of a young man identified as Daniel, who recounted his experience working in one of these spaces in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, allegedly linked to the CJNG. The young man explained that the activities included the sale of timeshares, loans without credit bureau checks, and fraudulent investments in American companies.
The testimony revealed that employees were forced to intimidate clients, use an aggressive tone, and even threaten to send armed men to their homes.
In addition, workers had access to victims’ personal information such as IDs, addresses, and data on their children. According to Daniel, quitting these types of jobs was not easy, since supervisors exercised strict control over employees. They checked their social networks and required them to share their location constantly.
Source: infobae
