The Elaborate Fake-Kidnapping Scam Terrifying American Parents

Valerie Sobel, a mom in Los Angeles, answered her phone one day about two years ago and had barely said hello when she was scared half to death. “We have your daughter Simone’s finger,” the caller told her. “Do you want the rest of her in a body bag?” Orders followed. The mother followed every one of them, down to the most minute detail, including how many times she had better shred the receipt for the $4,000 in ransom she had wired to the kidnapper.

Sobel found her daughter hours later. The girl was not only alive and unharmed but had never been held captive at all. The mother had become a victim of a scam that law enforcement officials call “virtual kidnapping for ransom,” a plot in which callers try to terrify people into wiring them money by convincing them a loved one has been kidnapped. Thousands of people in the United States have received such calls, the most common targets being parents who are warned their son or daughter has been kidnapped and will be killed unless ransom demands are met.

The number of people kidnapped since the scam became common in the United States about four years ago is not in the thousands, as the ransom calls might indicate. Virtual kidnappings, by definition, can never involve actual abductions. Even parents who feel certain that a call claiming their child had been kidnapped is a hoax are likely to check on their whereabouts, just to be extra sure, because that’s how parents are. Child confirmed safe, no ransom paid. Extorting money from parents still capable of thinking straight when getting such a call is tough.

So, while ransom calls can differ in approach and tactics depending on the target and variations to the basics of the scam, the goal of every call is the same: to scare the living hell out of the targets with enough intensity that their actions are controlled less by their brain and more by their emotions. Sometimes the calls are made as somebody screams in the background.

“They are really, really good at making it sound like a very urgent situation,” Special Agent Michelle Lee of the FBI’s Texas office in San Antonio told Patch. “They create a situation of panic and chaos to get the victim to not think about those logical things you would normally walk through. They may hear the alleged victim screaming loudly, and there’s a lot of cursing, making demands and rushing the victim.”

The highest concentration of calls have been made to areas with dense populations of wealthy people or immigrants. In 2013 and 2014, the scam targeted mostly families in New York City. Then a came a spike in calls to California. Early last year, it was Texas, Virginia and New York City again. Los Angeles families of Mexican heritage have recently become favorite targets.

The actual number of people who have paid ransom over the years is unknown, but Los Angeles police said last week they know of $114,000 that has been sent to virtual kidnappers since 2015 by victims in their city, and they are certain that the total is actually much higher than that. Hundreds of people in New York City have wired money to scammers going back at least four years, according to the FBI’s New York field office.

Most all of the victims targeted in a current wave of ransom calls are of Mexican heritage, some of them born in the United States. Most, though, have been Mexican immigrants who may be seen as reluctant to involve law enforcement because they’re undocumented or because they’re familiar with the brutal tactics used by drug cartels in their home country to extort money and they pay up, not willing to take any chances.

Some fake kidnappers research their victims before demanding money. They may use Google Maps or other internet sites to get descriptions of a victim’s home and comb through social media to learn about their lives. By peppering their ransom calls with the information learned about their victims, they add credibility to their threats.

Lee, who has reviewed hundreds of cases in her role as an FBI public affairs officer, said she understands how parents are duped.

“The thought of your child being hurt is traumatic,” she said. “You can threaten to kill me and that’s one thing, but you threaten to kill my child, that takes it to a new level.”

In some iterations of the extortion scheme, scammers work in tandem, isolating both the supposed kidnapping victim and the person they’re targeting to pay the ransom to prevent them from communicating. In one case, Lee said, a woman was told her husband had been kidnapped, that she was being watched and that she should go to a hotel room and await instructions. In the meantime, the same demands were made of the woman’s husband, using recorded snippets of his wife from the earlier conversation.

“He actually really does believe they have her in custody,” Lee said.

It’s nearly impossible to track down perpetrators in the scams. Last month, investigators arrested Yanette Rodriguez Acosta, 34, of Houston, on wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering charges. Her case will be the first-ever federal prosecution in a virtual kidnapping scam.

Acosta and unnamed conspirators are accused in Los Angeles federal court of using Mexican phone numbers to target at least 39 victims in California, Texas, Idaho and Minnesota, including Valerie Sobel, according to Gene Kowel, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s criminal division in Los Angeles.

Authorities are recognizing another recent trend. In south Texas, Lee said, dentists, general practitioners and various other medical professionals have been targeted. During June and July, the FBI received multiple reports indicating physicians in McAllen, Laredo, Brownsville and Del Rio were contacted in attempts to collect extortion payments in “virtual kidnapping” schemes.

No suspects have been identified in those cases.

What To Do If You Get A Call

There are ways to avoid being victimized, Lee said.

Be suspicious of demands that ransom be paid by wire transfer. “In these schemes, they’re never going to ask for a money drop,” Lee explained. “It’s going to be a wire transfer, and it may be requested in smaller increments.”

Slow the caller down and tell them you’re writing down the demands or need time to come up with the money. “They’re capitalizing on urgency and talking quickly to get you to be fearful and immediately make that decision, so you can’t slow things down and start thinking it through,” Lee said.

Don’t haggle over the ransom. In some cases, the caller may start out with a high ransom demand, then lower it, sometimes significantly, when they’re met with resistance, Lee said. Most scammers are trying to make a quick hit and go after smaller amounts because there’s a greater likelihood of a payoff.

Ask for proof the supposed victim is alive. Don’t settle for what the caller offers — pre-recorded or scripted responses, three-way calls or even face-to-face conversations through Skype or FaceTime. Instead, ask the caller for a photo of the victim holding a newspaper with a current date clearly visible.

Ask to speak with the victim. If the caller refuses, ask for a description of the victim, what the victim is wearing and for a description of the victim’s vehicle.

Ask that the victim be allowed to call back from his or mobile phone.

While staying on the line with alleged kidnappers, try to call the alleged kidnap victim from another phone. Attempt to text or contact the victim via social media.

Even a seasoned Los Angeles police sergeant was targeted in a call in which a woman was screaming, “Daddy, help me” into the phone. The sergeant, who asked not to be identified, didn’t fall for it, but he told the Los Angeles Times that fear eclipsed the skepticism he would normally display in such situations.

“All that training kind of goes out the window when it’s personal to you,” he told the newspaper. “They specifically threatened to put a bullet in the back of my child’s head.”

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