First the cartel cut its teeth with drug trafficking. Then avocados, real estate and construction companies. Now, a Mexican criminal group known for its brutality is moving in on seniors and their timeshares.
The operation is relatively simple. Cartel employees posing as sales representatives call up timeshare owners, offering to buy their investments back for generous sums. They then demand upfront fees for anything from listing advertisements to paying government fines. The representatives persuade their victims to wire large amounts of money to Mexico — sometimes as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars — and then they disappear.
The scheme has netted the cartel, Jalisco New Generation, hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly, via dozens of call centers in Mexico that relentlessly target American and Canadian timeshare owners. They even bribe employees at Mexican resorts to leak guest information, the U.S. officials say.
Full story: A Mexican Drug Cartel’s New Target? Seniors and Their Timeshares
What could this mean for our general safety moving forward? I believe it goes without saying that cartels and other organized crime groups are essentially the modern day pirates. These groups have become extremely pervasive and current methods of countering these groups seem to show little effect given how much power and influence they have. Over the past few decades they have become an increasing threat to other nations by slowly infiltrating and influencing local populations through fear mongering and violence. Now they are targetting seniors and it is only a matter of time before they are more widespread and actively threatening our government (although conspiracy theorists point to the bribing of our government). I do believe that with these groups geaining more leverage on more powerful individuals they could dominate some parts of the world (if they already aren’t) and something needs to change. We have already seen the United States discuss how to deal with them earlier in the 2020s (with the thought of labeling as terrorists) and we have seen how the war on drugs has gone. More thought and research needs to be brought in in order to find effective solutions to this growing threat.
Alejandro, I agree with you. What does this mean for general safety moving forward? How is the cartel getting away with this? The big question is why are they targeting seniors and the elderly? Are they just easier targets to do what they want? This brings up the most common scam in America for senior citizens with credit card scams, and scamming out thousands of dollars from the elderly. This was a big deal back in the day with scamming the elderly. They were easier targets to scammers and I feel the cartels are figuring this out now. How can we stop them from hurting others?
This does pose a large amount of concern for our safety and privacy in the future. Why are they now targeting the elderly and how does this affect society? How can we prevent this from happening to more elders? Elders are seen as the vulnerable demographics when it comes to technology so it does make it easier for them to fall for scams giving the cartel a better advantage of having a successful outcome. Timeshares have also seen an increase in the industry becoming another way the cartel can get more money which is another thing that is well-known thing a lot of elders invest in.
In regards to cartels being labeled as terrorists, I believe that it raises a number of complex questions about how we categorize criminal organizations. Their actions very much indeed involve extreme violence and intimidation, but I would think that labeling them as terrorists could introduce legal and even geopolitical problems into the equation. We know that terrorism involves having political or ideological motives, but cartels mainly act from a motive of profiting off of illegal activity. I also think labeling them as terrorists could result in the line between criminal and political violence being blurred. Of course, the intensity and growing nature of cartels cannot be ignored, but careful consideration into labeling them as terrorists should also be explored.