Anatomy of a virtual kidnapping
The reality is that you do not know that you are dealing with a Virtual Kidnap incident until it is over
WHAT IS A VIRTUAL KIDNAPPING?
Virtual kidnapping is essentially a scam, whereby criminals trick victims into believing that their loved ones have been abducted to extort a ransom. The heist is simple, as all that criminals require is a phone. However, iterations of this scam are variable. Victims have reported that they have received calls from individuals who have known details about their loved ones; in these instances, criminals will scour the victim’s social media profiles to ascertain whether victims are abroad, at school, or out of immediate contact with family. To make the scam seem more credible, criminals will also provide personal details about the supposed victim which have been gleaned off social media. In other cases, targeting has been random, with criminals opportunistically calling numbers. Nevertheless, in the majority of cases, criminals will get another person to scream in the background of the call to heighten the sense of urgency. Panic prompts victims to perform online payments to offshore bank accounts. The primary goal is to convince victims that the case is real and prevent them from verifying the whereabouts of their loved ones.
HOW WIDESPREAD IS IT?
While initially limited to urban areas of Latin America, virtual kidnappings have spread to other regions. Reports from the US and Canada suggest that criminal groups from Mexico and China are targeting civilians in major cities. In Los Angeles, police reported that victims had paid USD 114,000 in ransoms to virtual kidnappers between 2015 and August 2017. In Canada and Hong Kong, individuals of Chinese descent have also been targeted by suspects claiming to be Chinese government officials.
HOW CAN I PREVENT BEING TARGETED?
The reality is that you do not know that you are dealing with a Virtual Kidnap incident until it is over, notwithstanding indicators. The following tips reduce individual exposure to this threat:
Mitigation
Land lines
- Instruct employees to answer phones in your home and office
Cellular phone
- Do not answer unless the calling number is in memory
- Password protect in the event your phone is stolen or lost
- Remove all generic names from the contact list such as ‘home,’ ‘wife,’ ‘family,’ ‘office,’ etc.
- Delete your call history on a regular basis
- Verify reception at all proposed
- Refuse to cede to requests to turn-off for whatever reason
Information
- Avoid publishing plans for an upcoming trip online, including on social media
- Never share personal/ business information with strangers
Maintain contact
- Establish a schedule for ‘check-ins’ with your company while traveling
- Keep in regular touch with your family while away from home
- Consider establishing a verification code word to confirm kidnapping claims
Case Studies
Brazil
On 12 January 2018, an elderly couple deposited R$40,000 (approximately USD 45,000) into various bank accounts in Goiás, before police were able to track them and stop the grift. Criminals had called the couple, and managed to convince them that their children had been kidnapped, and had the couple isolate themselves in a hotel room for three days. Meanwhile, the criminals also contacted the couple’s family to convince them that the couple had been kidnapped. This follows similar cases within the state in what appears to be a new form of virtual kidnapping, known as ‘cross kidnapping’. Essentially, fraudsters convince one party to turn off their phone and isolate themselves whilst also contacting the mark’s loved ones, stating that they have kidnapped. In these cases, criminals attempt to extort double ransoms.
Canada
Since mid-2017, Royal Canadian Mounted Police have reported an increase in virtual kidnappings targeting Chinese nationals. In July 2017, at least six female Chinese nationals were targeted in Vancouver. The perpetrators contacted the victims through an automated phone message telling them that their personal information had been compromised and were consequently connected to crimes in China. The suspects, who claimed to be Chinese government officials, threated to harm the China-based families of the victims if they failed to comply with a series of undisclosed demands. At the same time, the parents of the victims were contacted and convinced that their family members were being held against their will. The perpetrators then demanded a ransom from the families for their release. It remains unclear how many of the victims paid a ransom to the perpetrators.
Chile
On 31 August 2017, the 80-year-old mother-in-law of a Chilean senator was targeted in a virtual kidnapping. Criminals called the woman, claiming that they had her daughter and the senator with them, and threatened harm. In exchange for their safety, the mother-in-law placed around 8 million pesos (approximately USD 13,000) worth of personal items in a van parked in a side street near her house. She then withdrew 10 million pesos (approximately USD 16,500) from her bank account, put it in a bag and left it in a bush on the street; street cameras recorded an unidentified woman collecting the bag a few minutes later. The call lasted for several hours, and the woman only discovered she was scammed after receiving a call from her daughter later that day.
Hong Kong
In August 2017, a Chinese university student in Hong Kong was contacted by someone claiming to be an immigration official, who told her she was under criminal investigation in mainland China. She was transferred to an accomplice, claiming to be a police officer, who tricked her into transferring CNY 650,000 (approximately USD 99,000) into a bank account in mainland China by saying it formed part of their investigation. The victim was also made to surrender her WeChat login details, and was told not to contact anyone. Using her WeChat account, the scammers contacted her father in China’s Liaoning Province. They said she had been kidnapped, and demanded he pay a CNY 1 million (approximately USD 153,000) ransom to secure her release. However, he contacted a friend of the victim instead, who contacted the Hong Kong police and the victim was found in a shopping mall near her home.
Kenya
Virtual kidnappings reportedly accounted for 27.1 percent of all kidnappings in Kenya between 2016 and 2017. The majority of incidents were concentrated in Nairobi, with up to 72.2 percent of kidnappings in the city being virtual scams. Although these statistics are skewed by cases where the victim knows the perpetrator or where perpetrators faked their own abductions to extort families and businesses, cases reported in 2017 demonstrated an increased level of sophistication by virtual kidnappers. For example, in August 2017, a local teacher was arrested in Nairobi after attempting to extort SH 500,000 shillings (approximately USD 4,900) from her community after claiming to have been kidnapped. The suspect was able to extort SH 70,000 (USD 680) before she was apprehended.