Mexico: The Rise
of WhatsApp
Extortion Cases
By Mariana Marcaletti
César Suárez, 60, a sociologist in México City, was relaxing at his house one evening when he received an unexpected phone call.
“Help me, dad, please help me,” a young man screamed on the phone. Seconds latter, another person started speaking: “We have your son.”
Just when Suárez started panicking, he saw his son entering the door. He felt relieved and hung up the phone.
Fake kidnappings like this are an everyday thing in Mexico.
“I know at least 10 people who know someone who has been a victim of extortion,” said Ana Ladrón De Guevara, a PR executive who lives in Mexico DF. Although this trend has been a constant for the past decade in the country, more and more crimes are taking a new form: data like photographs, information about whereabouts, hobbies and professions is collected via social networks and messaging apps such as WhatsApp and then used for extortion.
“It makes sense; they are saving resources,” said Mizraim Partida Cano, consultant at Consejo Ciudadano, a Mexico-based NGO dedicated to the prevention of virtual kidnappings and extortion.
“They have been using smartphones and social media, why wouldn’t they use WhatsApp if it is for free?” Partida Cano said. “In their criminal activities, communication tools are a weapon.”
For digital criminals, famous messaging app WhatsApp is also a data collection tool, same as social networks like Facebook. In the virtual space, people give out information without realizing they are doing so. Some users are more vulnerable than others: the elderly and minors are the most frequently addressed sectors, says Consejo Ciudadano.
Criminals get people’s mobile numbers through reading public profiles on Facebook. Since a user’s contact list is automatically added to WhatsApp upon installation, criminals can easily obtain the name and photo – if uploaded – of the user whose phone number has just been collected. So they begin the talk, texting via WhatsApp:
What’s your name?
What do you do for a living?
Where exactly do you live?
Do you have family?
What do you like doing in your free time?
Often times, job recruiters ask these questions, and other times, these requests have a flirtatious agenda. Antonio Guzmán Fernández, an Android developer who lives in D.F., said he heard that, many times, female accomplices get phone numbers in the street by pretending to be hitting on potential victims.
Once the phone numbers have been collected and added to WhatsApp, the strategies vary depending on the criminal’s goals. Many times, they are just trying to get extra cash to continue the everyday tasks of reaching out to potential victims.
“They might tell you you won an award and that in order to collect it, you need to deposit some money in a bank account,” Partida Cano said.
Other times – when they would like to steal more money – digital criminals resort to the kidnapping lie, triggering an emotional effect on people. Although only a few of these cases have actually happened (most people hang up the phone when they perceive a threat as empty), the ones that come true can have devastating effects for the people involved.
Sources who preferred to stay anonymous for safety concerns said they have to move their house because of a death threat, and others admitted having sold things to pay for a ransom request that in the end turned out to be fake kidnapping.
Citizen organizations like Consejo Ciudadano, which are financed through private and public donations, are providing psychological assistance to people facing these situations, asking them in return to help them build a database with criminals’ telephone numbers, so that such cases can be prevented in the future.
Mexicans are skeptical to state-sponsored initiatives, and very often this type of crimes are unreported because victims don’t trust authorities.
“Most of the times, people texting or calling are inmates, and the police is implicated in the business,” Súarez said.
