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A Borderless Threat:The Global Rise of Virtual Kidnappings

From Hong Kong to Mexico City, there has been a notable increase in scams involving hoax kidnappings in recent years. Virtual kidnapping involves attempts to extort a ransom from individuals by perpetrators falsely claiming they have abducted a loved one. S-RM Latin America and Asia Pacific analysts, Rufus Kleinwort and Rob Attwell, highlight some recent cases from their respective regions. As the cases below demonstrate, this type of scam may target locals and foreign nationals alike, include other forms of fraud, and involve different levels of sophistication depending on the perpetrator.
Virtual kidnap
VIRTUAL KIDNAPPINGS IN LATIN AMERICA

Mexico is widely identified as a hub for virtual kidnappings, with several foreign ministries warning citizens of the risk of this form of fake kidnapping while travelling in the country. Organised gangs and opportunistic criminals alike continue to rely on the low investment required to carry out the crime. Small-time criminal groups have taken advantage of tourists and students - who are frequently uncontactable for several hours - to convince their families that their loved one has been kidnapped. Callers simply need the name of the traveller or student and their emergency contact in order to exact small ransoms from panicked relatives. Yet, as members of the public have become more aware of this type of scam, criminals have devised more convincing schemes. For example, Mexico’s Secretariat of the Interior released a warning this summer highlighting the vulnerability of individuals staying in hotels to scams that convince them they are under surveillance by an infamous Mexican gang, such as Los Zetas. Fearful of being assaulted or even killed, individuals comply with instructions and unwittingly isolate themselves, whereupon the scam artists contact the victim’s relatives to extort a wired-transfer of money.

Virtual kidnapping has increasingly become a global phenomenon. In Latin America, there is a range of perpetrators, targets and modus operandi. In Rosario, Argentina, an elderly woman was robbed of her life savings (more than USD 22, 800), believing that supposed captors were harming her son. She made various trips to a designated street corner close to her house, handing over bags of cash and jewellery to an intermediary. Several similar incidents suggest that groups in Argentina target older citizens since they are less aware of the scheme.

In another case, local news sources reported in July 2017 that an Argentine group named the ‘Hermanos Gitanos’ - comprising four men and four women between the ages of 30 and 60 - had been arrested for an estimated 28 successful virtual kidnappings. The head of the group had conducted all her activities whilst under house arrest, calling targets either late at night or early in the morning to increase victims’ sense of panic. Although many locals in Latin America have an increased awareness of this scam, the elderly, students and tourists, remain vulnerable. The Argentine Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos revealed recently that around four in every 100 virtual kidnappings in the country resulted in the payment of a ransom. Unfortunately, continued fear of kidnaps for ransom, and inefficient policing in the region, suggest that this type of scam will continue to be carried out by Latin American criminal groups.

VIRTUAL KIDNAPPINGS IN HONG KONG

Virtual kidnappings in Hong Kong are one of the tactics used by transnational Chinese and Taiwanese gangs to commit telecoms fraud. Gang members, usually based in third countries, ranging from Cambodia to Kenya, typically pose as security and local government officials to intimidate potential victims.

In August 2017 for example, a female university student and her father were the victims of an elaborate combined telecoms fraud and attempted virtual kidnapping scam. The student, who is originally from the Chinese mainland, received a phone call from someone claiming to be a Hong Kong immigration official. The fake official accused her of breaking Chinese laws before transferring her to an accomplice posing as a police officer from Shanghai. After being directed to a website depicting a fake arrest warrant and which likely contained embedded malicious software designed to capture her banking details, she was told to transfer CNY 650,000 (approximately USD 99,000) to her mainland bank account as surety. The victim travelled to nearby Shenzhen, a Chinese city located 30-40 minutes away by subway, to make the transfer and the money was subsequently transferred out of her account by persons unknown.
​In August 2017 for example, a female university student and her father were the victims of an elaborate combined telecoms fraud and attempted virtual kidnapping scam.

After returning to Hong Kong, the scammers contacted the student again and told her not to return home or contact anyone. She was also told to surrender her WeChat account’s login details. Using her WeChat account, the scammers contacted her father, who lives in Liaoning Province, to tell him that they had abducted his daughter. They sent him doctored photographs of his daughter and demanded he pay a CNY 1 million (approximately USD 153,000) ransom to secure her release. Instead of paying the ransom, the father contacted one of his daughter’s friends to ask if she was missing. The friend called the police after she failed to contact the victim, who was subsequently located in a shopping mall near her home.

Hong Kong police received at least 443 reports of phone scams in the first six months of 2017, an eight percent increase from the same time period in 2016, when 410 incidents were reported. Phone scams continue to make up more than half of all the 760 telecoms fraud cases, which include email scams in which victims are tricked into clicking on links or downloading attachments with embedded malicious software. Approximately 60 percent of all cases involve fake mainland Chinese security officials and the average amounts demanded reportedly increased by 37 percent between 2016 and 2017.

The prevalence of telecoms fraud cases prompted the Hong Kong police to establish a specialised unit in July 2017. Additionally, the Chinese government has encouraged third countries to deport Chinese and Taiwanese nationals engaged in telecoms fraud, with 400 being deported from Cambodia alone in August 2017. While the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities have stepped up their efforts in this regard, telecoms fraud, and virtual kidnappings, will remain a threat for the foreseeable future. Gangs operate in numerous countries across the globe and their activities are aided by increased interconnectivity across national boundaries. This makes the apprehension of criminals engaging in this form of extortion unlikely in many cases.

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