A drug cartel based in Mexico known for gruesome public slaughtering is said to have drained $40 million from Americans, and stole many elderly victims’ life savings without shedding blood according to FBI data, 2022.
What started as a small operation in the Puerto Vallarta area and took over popular tourist spots like Cancun, according to the U.S. Treasury, which issued sanctions against seven fugitives and 19 Mexican companies connected to the scam last April.
Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen reported last November that “CJNG uses extreme violence and intimidation to control the timeshare network, which often targets elder U.S. citizens and can defraud victims of their life savings, the Treasury remains committed to the Administration’s whole-of-government effort, in coordination with our partners in Mexico, to disrupt CJNG’s revenue sources and ability to traffic deadly drugs like fentanyl.”
The Courier Journal have been on a decade-long journey through the cartel’s layered scheme that cost one man bit close to $1.8 million.
Their scope of lure on him initially was a healthy profit from his timeshare. After years of being duped, the cartel came back with promises of reimbursement from a seemingly legitimate Mexican lawyer filing a class action lawsuit that kept the man hooked.
The callers were reported “spoke perfect, accent-free English,” and continued their ceaseless pursuit for decades, with years-long stretches of silence.
By the end of the situation involving just this one victim, there were 99 wire transfers, more than 150 people involved and at least 12 Mexican bank accounts, according to the Courier Journal.
“It’s almost like an addiction,” said Stephen, who asked the Louisville newspaper to only identify him by his first name because he didn’t want his employer to know. “I kept thinking the next person was going to help me get out of it.”