A Mexican cartel is trapping unsuspecting tourists in a timeshare scam

There has been a long-documented history of Mexican drug cartels preying on unsuspecting tourists, resulting in violence, kidnappings and sometimes deaths. But in recent years, one cartel has turned its attention toward an unconventional method of scamming tourists by targeting people that own Mexican timeshares.

Both the U.S. Treasury Department and the FBI have sent out bulletins warning of a widespread timeshare scam being perpetrated by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). The cartel, based in the namesake Mexican state of Jalisco, “generates substantial revenue for its multi-faceted criminal enterprise through its timeshare fraud network,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a press release. News of CJNG’s operation first began making the rounds in 2023 but has been going on for much longer — over the past five years, the cartel has scammed timeshare owners out of $288 million, according to the FBI.

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The scam, while widespread, is “relatively simple,” The New York Times said. CJNG members “posing as sales representatives call up timeshare owners, offering to buy their investments back for generous sums,” said the Times. They then “demand upfront fees for anything from listing advertisements to paying government fines.” This often leads to victims wiring “large amounts of money to Mexico, sometimes as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars.” By the time the victims realize what has happened, the scammers have vanished.

Over the years, CJNG has “turned defrauding American citizens with timeshares into a science,” USA Today said, refining its schemes over time. The cartel “hires call center workers who speak perfect English and teaches them to lure unsuspecting Americans into believing they are steps away from freeing themselves from their timeshares.” The workers are even taught to “craft documents with names of companies, brokers and attorneys that appear legitimate,” said USA Today, sometimes even stealing the identities of actual lawyers and U.S. officials.

The U.S. government was tipped off to the scam when “sellers were contacted via email by scammers who said they had a buyer lined up, but the seller needed to pay taxes or other fees before the deal could go through,” according to CBS News. And while anger might be placed toward the cartel’s workers, it seems many of them are there by force. In June 2023, “as many as eight young workers were confirmed dead after they apparently tried to quit jobs at a call center operated by the Jalisco cartel,” said CBS.

Federal agencies have been fighting back against CJNG — or at least trying to. The United States has sanctioned at least eight companies tied to the cartel. All of these companies are based in Puerta Vallarta or Guadalajara, and “all claim to either be financial services or real estate firms,” CNN said. However, investigators believe they are all connected to CJNG’s timeshare scam, with the Treasury Department saying they have “at times” pretended to represent the U.S. government.

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