If you went to the so-called “unicorn white witch doctor” of Catemaco or had white magic performed on you and they didn’t fulfill their promise to find you a partner, beware: you could be a victim of fraud, and in Michoacán, this is a crime.
For some, the tradition of divination or healing through spiritual evocations may be considered an art or way of life, but according to the State Penal Code, this is also a specific form of fraud.
This is established in Article 218, Section XII of the Penal Code, and depending on the amount involved, it can be punished with up to 15 years in prison.
It is considered fraud when someone “exploits anxieties, superstition, or ignorance through supposed spirit evocation, divination, or healing.”
The 2016 reforms to the Penal Code stipulate that the minimum penalty will be imprisonment for six months to two years or a fine of one hundred to two hundred and seventy-five days’ wages when the value of the defrauded amount does not exceed fifty times the daily value of the Unit of Measurement and Updating (UMA).
The maximum penalty will be eight to fifteen years and a fine of one thousand to one thousand five hundred days’ wages when the value of the defrauded amount exceeds ten thousand times the daily value of the Unit of Measurement and Updating (UMA).
And, if the amount of the affected assets cannot be determined, the penalty will be two to eight years and a fine of 200,000 days’ wages.
Source: quadratin
