February 7, 2025 • 36 mins
This week we cover the mononymous James, who just wanted to sell a time share he no longer used and ended up getting sent on a wild ride of additional scams from a Mexican cartel that cost him almost one million dollars.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff has been arrested and
charged with running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Congress wants to know what caused the Enron meltdown, and
while the collective rage currently is focused on low
comp. Tyco CEO Dennis Koslowski was
convicted of looting hundreds ofmillions of dollars.
This is one of the biggest fraudcases ever.
(00:23):
Their president's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.
Find out more on this week's episode of White Collars, Red
Hands. A white sandy beach, beautiful
ocean waters, your footprints left in the sand while you
stroll hand in hand with your lover.
Sounds like an ideal day, right?Right.
(00:46):
Everyone loves a relaxing vacation.
So much so that while you're on vacation, you never want to
leave. What if you could own your own
beach house? Wouldn't that be great?
But in this economy, who can afford that?
That's where timeshares come in.It is estimated that 10 million
(01:08):
households in the United States own a timeshare.
Oh, what is the timeshare anyways?
And how do you get one? And what on earth could possibly
be scandalous about them? Find out the fraud, the
deception and how the cartel is involved in this week's episode
of White Collars, Red Hands. And actually, if you sit through
(01:28):
this hour long episode, we will actually reward you with a free
trip to Jamaica. That's right.
But you have to pass a questionnaire at the end, yes.
And you have to actually make itthrough the whole time and
rotate 7 salespeople, Yes. Selling you our podcast merch.
Yes. And we're going to make it
(01:51):
really difficult for you. But you'll get that free
vacation. But you'll get it for sure.
There's just an upfront cost of $5000, yeah.
Yeah, actually, if you if you give me $5000, I'll get you a
vacation somewhere. Some anywhere.
No, not. No.
Specifically, not anywhere. Somewhere, somewhere.
Somewhere. Have you been to Omaha, NE?
Do you want? To do you want to nice place.
(02:13):
Well, welcome back to another episode of White Collars, Red
hands. I'm Kashan and I'm Nina.
And Omaha, NE is I don't know about a nice place.
I've never been. I haven't been either but I'm
just saying no one talks about but I'm sorry, Omaha IANS.
Omaha. IANS.
Whatever. Omaha.
I'm sure you have like some you're like, yeah, but the
(02:34):
weather here is very mild and. And we have a local cheese.
I don't care. You have something that's fine,
but no one has tried to sell it to.
Me, you have a very flat landscape.
And corn. And corn.
I forget Nebraska. So Nebraska Cornhuskers is a
football team that is one of theonly football teams I know.
(02:56):
I'm about to say, you say that like you're like, there's three
and that's one. Of them, there are three
football teams in the United States, and the Nebraska
Cornhuskers are one of them. You're correct.
So if you want a timeshare in Omaha, listen to this episode.
But what is a timeshare anyway? Do you know?
(03:17):
Do you want me to pretend I don't for?
I don't know. I'm just so curious if you know.
Yeah, of course I know what a. Timeshare is well, if you're
poor like me, you don't know anyone with a timeshare and you
don't really even know what it is.
Do rich people even have timeshares?
I think rich people just pay forthe vacations.
I don't know this. I feel like this is.
Very this is very middle. Timeshare is a very middle class
(03:37):
behavior. OK, well, I'm not middle class,
I'm poor, and my family never had a timeshare.
So time shares, they've been around for a while.
They've been around since 1969, and according to a 2020 study by
the American Resort Development Association, it has grown into a
$10.5 billion industry, which iscrazy.
(03:59):
So a timeshare is a type of vacation property with a shared
ownership model. So this means that when you buy
into a timeshare, you share the cost of the property with other
buyers. So you're investing into this
timeshare. When you do that, you are
guaranteed a certain amount of time at the property each year.
Most of the time timeshares are smaller units in a larger resort
(04:21):
property. Yeah, so it's like, it's like,
oh man, I want a new Maserati, but I can't afford it.
I'll pay 110th of the price of the Maserati and I'll drive it
three days a year and take pictures and and think I look
cool and then I'll never be ableto not own this Maserati.
Yeah, basically. Now there are different ways of
(04:43):
owning and buying into a timeshare.
Sometimes you actually end up buying a portion of the
property. This often depends on how much
time you plan on using the property.
And if it seems like this is a vacation spot that you and your
family would like, this might bethe ideal setup.
This is called a deeded timeshare.
(05:03):
Another way that you can get into a timeshare is to lease it
without actually owning it. So this is a non deeded
timeshare. Now non deeded time shares are
usually cheaper, however it's often harder to resell them
slash borderline impossible to get rid of them now.
Time shares often come with different amounts of time that
(05:24):
you can use them. There are fixed week time shares
which is when you can go to the same property for the same dates
each year. Floating, which is what gives
you the ability to use the property at any time depending
on its availability. Fractional, which gives you
access to the property for larger amounts of time, about up
(05:44):
to three months, and points where you buy points.
And this is where you can buy different amounts of time at
different time shares throughoutthe year.
So if you want to go to Utah forskiing, you can buy like these
points to go get a timeshare there.
(06:04):
If you want to go to Hawaii, youcan buy points to get a week in
Hawaii. That's how that works.
Wow sounds great and very uncomplicated and very
transparent. My non deeded fractional
timeshare was easy to acquire and easy to understand.
And was worth the money much better than buying a hotel.
(06:24):
The average timeshare costs between 22,000 and $24,000.
This has an upfront cost that you have to pay to buy into the
timeshare, and then it costs about $1000 per year in
maintenance fees. There's no way that that's
cheaper than just paying to go to a resort.
(06:48):
Like. I don't.
Once a year, yeah. The only way that I can now.
I-25 Grand. So the only way I I think this
is now I will say that these numbers are more current.
So if you had bought a timeshareback in the 70s, but still even
then with the with inflation, itprobably would have they.
(07:09):
Probably raise your. They probably raise your fees
too like it's. Oh yeah, 100%.
And then, yeah, like unless you're planning like let's say
it's in Hawaii or something, like somewhere super nice, like
unless you're good at. But then even still you're
paying $1000 every year 'cause Iwas going to say like if it's a
(07:32):
five star resort that you're going to once a week, you're
going every single year for 30 years.
I can like maybe see where this would work out, but then you are
paying an additional $30,000 in fees.
So it's like because it's $1000 each year.
So I don't really think that they're worth it to be honest
with you, nor would I ever purchase one of.
(07:53):
Course they're not worth it. You can't even go like you can't
go when you want. And you?
Can't even go like a lot. No, no, it's like usually for
most people buy I get it for a week at a time.
Yeah, once again, if they if they were like you have to lease
this Maserati, but it cost $100,000.
But for $15,000 right now plus $1000 every year, one week out
(08:16):
of the year you can drive. You know, that's a terrible.
Deal. It's stupid.
It's stupid. Just like everything has a kink,
you can also have a scam for everything, and today is no
exception. So now the scheme I'm going to
talk about today is directly correlated with one family.
But this is a massive problem that stretches throughout the US
(08:37):
and Canada. So today we're going to talk
about James. I don't have access to his last
name. He has remained last nameless
because of, well, you're gonna find out a little bit more
throughout the episode, but he wants to remain as anonymous as
possible. Yeah, so, so Schmucko.
Yeah, His last name is James Schmucko.
(08:57):
Yeah, there you go, James Doe. I don't know, Like Schmucko.
Schmucko's better so for today'sstories about James.
Now, James was a retired cop from California and his wife was
a school nurse. The couple is currently in their
early 70s now. James and his wife bought a
timeshare in 1996 in Lake Tahoe for $8900.
(09:19):
The family would go to the timeshare every other year with
their daughters, but as they gotolder and their children got
older, they weren't really usingthe timeshare as often and it
wasn't worth it because of maintenance fees.
In 2022, James gets a phone callfrom a company called Worry Free
Vacations that was based in Atlanta, GA.
He spoke to a man named Michael.Now, Michael asked James if he
(09:42):
wanted a timeshare. James informed him that he
already had a timeshare. Michael asked James if he would
be interested in selling becausethere's a Mexican businessman
who is interested in purchasing his timeshare.
Michael said that the business businessman wanted to buy the
timeshare for about $22,000, which was over double of what
(10:05):
James and his family paid for the timeshare in the 1st place.
I mean, you'd be stupid not to take this deal.
Wait, so this phone call startedwith I want to sell you a
timeshare and somehow quickly turned into I know a Mexican
businessman who wants to buy your other timeshare.
Yes. Wow, no, that's that's a above
(10:25):
board. That sounds, that sounds legit.
Yeah. Only people in their 70s are
still on the phone with this person at this point.
Yeah, yeah, and also only peoplein their 70s would answer a call
the of a caller they don't know.Yeah, fair.
I'm like, I am hanging up. Immediately.
Once you start talking to me about you're trying to sell me
(10:47):
anything, I just hang up. I'm like, I'm not even doing
this anymore. Yeah, interviewed, James told a
ERAARP. Well, that's a little over
double what we paid for it. So my wife and I said, well, why
not, We'll give it a shot. He sent over the paperwork.
We received e-mail copies of a contract from an from an escrow
company actually out of New YorkCity.
(11:10):
Everything looked reasonable. So James agrees to sell the
timeshare. Now, due to his background in
law enforcement, James is, you know, used to really checking
out the details and making sure that things are up to snuff.
And he does try to make sure that this is a legit set up.
He goes online and researches the man who wants to purchase
(11:32):
his timeshare and he sees that he is in fact a real person.
It turns out it turns out Juan Gonzalez is an actual.
Music in business man in Mexico.Juan Gonzalez.
You're like, everything checks out.
Yeah, there's a Facebook profileand everything.
Yeah, he saw that the buyer was a well respected man and was
(11:54):
very well known in his compute community.
A couple weeks after making the agreement, Michael and like
signing all the papers and stuff.
Michael calls James and tells him that he needs to send over
$2500 to facilitate the purpose the purchase of the timeshare.
This money would cover transfer and wire costs.
He was promised that the money would be refunded to him.
(12:16):
These fees would go directly to the Mexican government.
Now I am starting to see a red flag.
Why do I need to pay you to buy my thing?
That's not how this works, ever.But you know what?
I guess that that's why his lastname is Schmucker.
Right. So, well, as Kashawn said,
(12:38):
that's not how this works ever. I think to people who are more
tech savvy, people who are less trusting of people, OK, anyone
who's Gen. X or a millennial is never going
to fall for this. They probably unless, unless
(12:59):
they like grew up very sheltered, they're not going to
fall for this. Gen.
X might I want to. Count.
All right, well, millennial. A millennial's not going to fall
for this. Neither is a Gen.
Z person. Also, they aren't being able to
afford timeshares. But hell.
No man, I can't afford rent so you want me to buy another?
Property. A fucking timeshare.
(13:21):
But, you know, people fell, fellfor this, are falling for this.
And actually, in January of 2024, the FBI issued a warning
to owners of Timeshares to be onthe lookout for scammers.
And you know, I already started talking about this scam, but
this scam that happened with James is a textbook timeshare
(13:42):
scam. So what will normally happen is
that the owner of the timeshare will get a call from a quote UN
quote sales representative from a timeshare resale company
offering to sell or rent out their timeshare.
The sales Rep will use specific sales tactics to make it seem
like the sale is urgent and thatthe owner needs to act quickly
(14:02):
to sell their timeshare. Timeshare owners are told that
they need to pay upfront. Timeshare owners are told that
they need to pay an upfront fee when selling their timeshare
because it covers advertising fees and closing costs.
Once they pay those fees, it becomes harder and harder to
contact the companies. You get Commission on this sale,
(14:24):
why would I have to pay? Any of this to pay you?
You take it off the top and thenyou give me back the rest of the
profits. This is not how it ever works.
Now, not only do people get scammed by companies claiming to
sell their time shares, but theyalso in turn also get scammed by
fraudulent timeshare fraud recovery companies.
(14:46):
The fraudulent fraud recovery company promises the seller that
they'll get their money back, but not before paying an upfront
fee for the services. So you are getting scammed
back-to-back. So when you say the fraud
recovery company, yes, what is what is it that they're selling?
(15:08):
So they're contacting the personwho has sold their timeshare and
they're like. In the first fraud, so you're
saying they're they go through this first fraud of selling
their time. Yeah, so first of all, quote UN
quote sell their timeshare. They then realize, oh, I think
I've been scammed because I keepgiving these people money.
I'm not getting any money in return.
(15:29):
Then the timeshare fraud recovery company will be like,
hey, did you get scammed? Buy that timeshare resale plate
like by the by the company that said they were going to sell
your timeshare and they're like,yeah, I did get scammed by that
company. We'll take those guys down for
an easy upfront fee of 5000. Dollars.
Yeah. And they're like, oh, well,
(15:50):
we'll help you get your money back.
And Oh my God, thank you. Yeah.
It just costs like $5000 or however much they tell them it's
going to take for them to get their money back.
And then people fall for that again.
Man, that's smart. Yeah, if you can.
Have you been scammed by a Nigerian Prince?
Well, call me the Nigerian Prince catching services to
(16:10):
catch a Nigerian Prince Predator, you call this guy?
For an upfront fee of $5000, you'll have all the Nigerian
Princess in prison as you choose.
That's exactly what it is. Send me a fax.
And like a lot of these type of scams, they do target the
elderly because they are a bit easier to get and.
(16:31):
They're the ones with timeshares.
And they're the. Ones like we've already
mentioned. They're the ones with timeshares
now when being asked to pay all these upfront fees.
This didn't really cause any alarms with James because a lot
of these fees are fees that you would also pay in the US when
you're selling property. Doesn't make sense to me, but
that is what I But that's what Iwas reading.
(16:52):
That's why he wasn't alarmed. So James wires the money to an
account in Mexico. He gets confirmation that the
money went through, but now he needs to pay an additional fee.
Now this pattern continues. He pays one fee and then he's
told that he owes another. Now, James's wife becomes
suspicious of what's going on, but James assures her that
(17:14):
everything is OK. He's being told that once the
sale goes through, he will be reimbursed.
So he's being told like every fee that you pay us, we will
reimburse you. So he just keeps giving these
people money. James was also sent documents of
all the reimbursements that he is owned.
And so they were sending him like legit documents.
(17:37):
So he really thought that he wasgoing to get paid back.
But about a year later, James starts to ask questions.
He is taking an extra like this,is taking an extraordinary
amount of time to sell one timeshare and he wants his
money. Yeah, a year, yeah.
We're a year into this. But the sale needs to happen
very. Quickly, but it's got to happen
now. But then a year later we don't
(17:58):
have our money and I've actuallypaid you more money to sell my
timeshare. That doesn't even make sense.
So James starts asking for a partial release of the funds.
But every time he asked, he was told it couldn't happen because
there were complications and they couldn't give him his
money. He was told that he could pay
about $30,000 to reinvest that money that he's already paid
(18:21):
into an environmentally conscious development in Mexico.
So they're like, hey, we can't get you the money, but if you
give us 30 more $1000, we can actually reinvest this into our
property. So just just to keep track of
who this micro guy is, right? He sells timeshares for a
(18:42):
company in Georgia. But wait, you have one.
Don't worry. I know a Mexican businessman who
just happens to want to buy a timeshare to, oh, you know, I
actually have property development deals that you could
invest in in Mexico. Yeah.
And a lot of and and all the money that he was wire
transferring, he was wire transferring it to Mexico.
(19:06):
He wasn't. Well, that's where the
businessman is, right? I know.
That makes perfect sense. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, sounds legit. Now, this sounds like it is.
So this environmentally conscious development in Mexico
sounds like it is going to make him a huge return and that this
would be even more than he wouldmake by just selling the
timeshare. So now there's a whole new round
(19:28):
of fees that need to be paid in order to make this investment
happen. James, stop, please.
James estimates that he made a few dozen payments to the
company and this whole time James believed that he needed to
make these payments in order to get his money back, trusting the
whole time that his payments would become fruitful.
(19:48):
James ended up sending around $900,000 to Mexico in in a year
and a half, almost all of the money that he and his wife had
saved for their retirement. This also included the sale of
his childhood home. And $150,000 that he borrowed
(20:10):
from his daughter and son. son-in-law.
To make matters worse, James's wife was diagnosed with cancer.
During all of this, there's actually a recorded conversation
between him and the scammers where the scammers tell him that
they're like, hey, you need to send us more money.
You need to send us more money. And he's like, you can tell how
(20:31):
stressed out he is in this phonecall.
And he's like, dude, I don't have any more money.
Like, I sold my childhood home. I like, I've given you
everything. I need my money back.
And he's like, I didn't like I sold this child my childhood
home and I didn't see any of that money.
I sent it all to you because yousaid I needed to send you this
(20:51):
money in order to get my money back.
And then he's like my wife's in the hospital.
And the guy's like, I don't careif your wife's in the hospital,
blah, blah. Like the guy's like screaming at
him and he's like, I don't care if your wife's in the hospital
and you need to get this done because blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. Your money's on the line.
Like they were really convincinghim that like, if you didn't
send us more money, the money you've already given us is on
(21:12):
the line and you're not going tosee it back.
Like this literally makes these,I mean, listen, judgement of
sending the money aside, this makes me sick to my stomach.
Like I cannot even imagine beingcaught up in this type of
scheme. It's good that I'm poor because
(21:33):
they're not going to get any kind of money like that out of
me because I don't even have $50,000, let alone $900,000.
So and around this time his daughter can just tell something
isn't right and she contacts a law firm.
Now this whole thing went on forabout a year and a half between
2022 and it ended earlier in Oh no, it's a new year.
So ended in 2024. So during this time, James is
(22:00):
still in contact with the scammers.
They actually requested $157,000to clean up the entire mess,
which is crazy because like I'vegiven you 900 thousand, I've
almost given you $1,000,000 and now you're telling me that I
need to send you $157,000 to clean up a mess that you
(22:22):
created. Well, we all created it but.
Yeah, well, it's, it's almost like it's a scam.
It's almost. Like it's a scam and James
actually considered putting a second mortgage on his house to
pay that. It's sad.
It's clear that he wanted to believe that it was all
legitimate. Also some cost fallacy at some
point, right? It's like, it's like, well, I
(22:42):
got to keep going. I've already put so much money
in this. Instead of saying like, wait,
let me step back. And yeah, like.
Evaluate this just. Stop like and and cut my losses.
Yeah, it's hard for hard for people.
Well, but especially when you'vegiven them all your money like.
Well. Yeah, you really would have a
hard time admitting that. Like I fucked up.
(23:04):
Well, not all this money. You can still take that second
mortgage, right? No.
So he does contact a journalist,and the journalist asks James to
record the calls with the scammers, which actually James
had been doing the entire time. The journalist said that it was
clear that the scammers had gotten to know James extremely
well, so well that the rapport was very personal.
(23:24):
They they genuinely seemed like they cared about him and wanted
him to trust them. And obviously he did, or he
wouldn't have sent them all thatmoney.
They would then turn the conversation around to what
James needed to do to get his money back.
And the scammers had multiple people who were involved in this
who had called James for his money.
And like I said earlier with theguy who was like, your wife's in
(23:45):
the hospital, like we don't, we don't care like you need to
blah, blah, blah, blah. Like they would get really
aggressive. And one of them even claimed to
be working with the government. And then if, and he was saying
that if James didn't pay these fees that he would never get his
money back. James contacted the reporter to
help him figure out where his money was even going.
(24:07):
And this is when they find out who James was actually talking
to all along. So who was scamming James this
whole time? It was the Jalisco New
Generation cartel, one of the deadliest cartels in Mexico.
All of James's money was going to the banks in Jalisco state in
(24:28):
Mexico. So this scam, this whole
timeshare scam that just the Jalisco state, I'm sorry, the
Jalisco new generation was running, brought in about $300
million in the last five years, God.
(24:48):
They're really in everything, huh?
How? Everything.
How come this wasn't an episode in Narcos?
You know, just a bunch of peoplein in like a, a calling station
yelling at old white people being like, you got to give us
your money. And they're like my wife's in
the hospital, James. Fuck you, give us the money.
(25:09):
Please send over $250,000 right now.
So the potential for this to actually be more than $300
million is probably accurate because most of these scams are
not reported. The FBI estimates that only
about 20. The FBI.
(25:29):
The FBI estimates that only about 20% of these scams are
even being reported, mainly because people are embarrassed
that they get scammed. So the amount of money that
people are actually being scammed is way higher.
Cartels are doing this because frankly, running a cartel is
(25:49):
expensive. You got to pay off officials,
you got to maintain safe travelsfrom Mexico to America and also
the imports from Colombia, and you have to keep money coming
in. So cartels are diversifying
their streams of income. I feel like the cartels aren't
hurting for money. No, but you want to but like I.
I think they're greedy and they want.
(26:11):
More money, Yeah. I mean, they're definitely not
hurting for money. I'm just saying I don't think
they did this just to like, oh, we got to cover our operational.
Oh, no. Well, so I, you know, I think
like, you know, here's the thing, you've got one shipment
of drugs going to America. If that gets caught and shut
down, you're out how much? Millions of dollars because you
(26:32):
have that much cocaine. But if we've got this other
thing going on now, I don't haveto worry about like if this
cocaine deal gets shut down, if they, like, seize all these
kilos of coke, well, I'm scamming these old people.
No, Yeah, diversifying in the market is great.
I'm just saying that I don't think it's like.
Well, no, I'm just. The way you said it made it seem
like they they really no they don't.
(26:53):
Really need the money. The things are tight over at the
cartels. No, no, no, no.
The cartel is doing just fine. What I'm saying is is like
running a cartel is expensive. You're buying a lot of drugs,
you're having to cover, you're paying people off and you want
to diversify your streams of income.
They're also in the avocado business.
(27:14):
You know, they're, you know, they've got their fingers
everywhere. Why not in time shares?
So actually the Jalisco new generation start, this isn't new
for them to be involved with these timeshare scams.
This actually started about 15 years ago.
They were realizing that timeshare scams were very
profitable and there were timeshare scams all over the
(27:35):
country and they saw what a money maker it was and they
wanted in on it. And this scam is actually really
easy to run because you're just,it's just people in a call
center scamming old people. Yeah, it's not hard to run.
They do it great in India, yeah.So the cartel is probably like.
Well, if they can do it over there, we can do it over.
Here we can do that, yeah. We can scam people too.
(27:56):
So the cartel took over these time.
So the timeshare scams were already running.
They already had like their own buildings, everything.
But then the cartel was like, all right, well, we're just
going to take them over. So they took them over very
violently. When you are in Jalisco state,
when you are in Mexico, it's youdon't even know that these call
(28:17):
centers are call centers. They look like any other store.
But it is very dangerous to workthere.
I mean, you know, being involvedwith cartel is dangerous no
matter what. What?
About about eight people have died in the last year in
relation to working with the call centers that we know of.
(28:38):
They find English speakers and they don't even really tell them
exactly what they'll be doing for work.
Most of the time, they're led tobelieve that they're working for
the hotel industry. It's estimated that over 30
people have gone missing from the call centers since 2017.
So one of these call center employees said that when they
found out that they realized, like when they realized what
(28:58):
they were doing, they really wanted to leave.
They tried to leave. But the cartel is really
forceful and does some very graphic things to keep people
loyal and to keep people workingfor them.
Yeah, like they'll make you watch Garfield.
A tale of two kitties. Just like terrible tortures.
I think that that is their MO. I think that's actually what the
cartel is known for, for making people watch Garfield.
(29:19):
A tale of two kitties. Well, I don't think that's true,
because I think they also did itat Guantanamo Bay.
I believe that. Yeah, I'm I'm pretty sure.
They also made them watch Haroldand Kumar Guantanamo Bay.
Oh no, that movie, that movie, that movie rocks.
Though that's probably what theygot if they.
Had not after you watch it 500? If they had good behavior.
Not after you watch it 500. Yeah, but Garfield, A Tale of
Two Kitties is bad the first time.
That's all I. Never.
(29:39):
I never, you know, I never saw that, right?
You are amongst a a very large group of people then.
Yeah, all. Right, so the the cartel gets a
hold of the timeshare owner's info by bribing or threatening
hotel resorts that the time shares are located at and forces
them to give out phone numbers of the people who have stayed
(30:00):
there. The callers are then given a
script on what to say to get their money.
Authorities know that this is going on, but they aren't really
doing much in regards to this. They're not really shutting down
the call centers, and they're not asking banks to do checks to
see where the money's coming from.
I mean, like in every country. But we're gonna like, this is
(30:21):
true everywhere, but organized crime is huge in Mexico.
It's. Especially true and I think we
can say it's especially. True.
That's true in Mexico. And the tourist industry also is
huge. In Mexico, the authorities have
really no incentive to stop timeshare crime because it will
hurt their tourist industry. If people know that this is
(30:41):
going on and they know that theycould potentially know what is
going on, they could potentiallydecide that they don't want a
vacation in police go anymore and they could choose to go
somewhere else. When the reporter told James
that the cartels were behind allof this, he had a really hard
time believing it. His lawyer advised him to quit
(31:02):
picking up the phone and after not picking up the phone for a
while, the calls finally stoppedcoming in.
When James said that he didn't want to believe that he got
duped, quote, I didn't want to believe that I could be fooled.
It's hard to say if James or anyof the other victims will ever
get their money, but all they can do now is come forward so
(31:25):
that others do not fall for the same scam and hopefully one day
they might have justice. So This is why we can't have
nice things because the cartel takes them.
Although this that's a joke, it is a reality for many people who
have had their life savings stripped away from them from
(31:47):
money hungry drug dealers acrossthe border.
Unfortunately, these fraudulent companies prey on the elderly
people like James who are easilymanipulated and are so good at
what they do that they'll drain you for every penny you have.
Hopefully these people will be brought to justice, however,
it's unlikely. Man, we didn't even get into how
(32:07):
timeshares themselves are mostlyscams.
Oh yeah, they are scams. I mean you.
They're impossible to get out of.
Yeah, they're designed to be impossible to get out of.
They try to get you to sign it over to your kids when you when
you die so that they can still get money from your children.
Like it's like, it's crazy. And we actually didn't talk
(32:27):
about this, so I'll talk about it now.
Soon. There is like getting into a
timeshare is so hard to get out of.
Yeah, it's it's damn near impossible.
That much like the fraudsters that get you out of the, the
like selling the timeshare scheme, there are those for
timeshares that'll be like we are, we are like lawyers that
(32:50):
specialize in negotiating getting out of timeshare
contracts. But but, and then they just
move. They like take your money and
move their offices and like leave.
Oh my God, yeah. And I know I referenced that
joke at the beginning that like this is like you just have to
sit through this hour long podcast and we'll give you the
free trip. That is something timeshares do.
(33:13):
They say, they say you'll get a free trip to Disneyland if you
come and you listen to our timeshare pitch and they do.
It's like predate. They sit you down and they
rotate through salespeople. Super predatory.
I don't remember the name of thecreator.
I wish I could plug it right now, but there is there's a guy
on YouTube that he went through this whole process knowing it
(33:34):
was a scam to see how hard it was to get the free vacation and
he did it. They finally gave him like like
a plane ticket. It was like to Disney at
Disneyland or Disney World. They finally gave him like like
a round trip like economy class ticket and a hotel room and like
(33:55):
tickets to Disneyland like they got it.
But what he went through to get it?
Was probably so extreme. Was crazy.
So if you have time you want to learn more about like the actual
like like how time shares themselves are a scam.
You know what I'll I'll I'll putthe thumbnail to the video here
in our video because it was great.
I remember watching it and it was really enlightening.
So go check that out. Yeah, and if you liked what you
(34:18):
heard today and you want more ofit, you can check us out on
social media. We are on facebook.com/white
Collars Red Hands. We're on Twitter at White
Collars Pod, we're on Instagram at White Collars under score,
Red Hands. We are on TikTok at White
Collars Red Hands, and we are also on YouTube at White Collars
Red Hands. If you want another freeways to
(34:40):
support us, please leave us a review.
We are on Apple Podcast and Spotify.
Both of those are places that you can leave reviews.
We love A5 star review, but an honest review is we'll always
take an honest review. If you want an unfree way to
support us, please do so by purchasing some merch.
Kashawn has his T-shirt on rightnow.
(35:02):
You can go over to our website while white collars,
redhands.com. Click on that merch tab.
It'll take you on over to T public and you can buy some of
our merch. Another freeway to support us is
by telling a friend. Word of mouth is a great way to
spread podcast news. And yeah, we'd love for you and
your friends to, you know, have a podcast club instead of a book
(35:25):
club. You listen to the podcast and
then you talk about it. But it what like a fucking
Midwest ass thing for you to recommend?
Like what the fuck? I've never even heard of it
before, but I just I that's because it's.
Not a thing. That's such a weird thing.
We can make it a thing. Oh, that's a book club, but with
podcasts. I guess book don't get me
(35:47):
started. OK, because Sean was not allowed
to join a book club and is clearly butthurt about it.
I'm kidding. I was allowed to join.
That's how I read all the 50 Shades of Grey books.
Oh. Hot.
I'm joking, I haven't read those.
I lost track of what I was saying.
Oh. If you find or hear of a white
(36:07):
collar Crime Story that you think we should cover, please
send it our way. You can e-mail it to us at White
Collars Red hands@gmail.com. We try to do a fan submitted
episode every single season and we would love to do yours next.
And I think that's it. Sounds it.
All right, well, thank you so much for listening.
And we'll see you on another episode of White Collars, Red
(36:28):
Hands.
Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff has been arrested and
charged with running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Congress wants to know what caused the Enron meltdown, and
while the collective rage currently is focused on low
comp. Tyco CEO Dennis Koslowski was
convicted of looting hundreds ofmillions of dollars.
This is one of the biggest fraudcases ever.
(00:23):
Their president's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.
Find out more on this week's episode of White Collars, Red
Hands. A white sandy beach, beautiful
ocean waters, your footprints left in the sand while you
stroll hand in hand with your lover.
Sounds like an ideal day, right?Right.
(00:46):
Everyone loves a relaxing vacation.
So much so that while you're on vacation, you never want to
leave. What if you could own your own
beach house? Wouldn't that be great?
But in this economy, who can afford that?
That's where timeshares come in.It is estimated that 10 million
(01:08):
households in the United States own a timeshare.
Oh, what is the timeshare anyways?
And how do you get one? And what on earth could possibly
be scandalous about them? Find out the fraud, the
deception and how the cartel is involved in this week's episode
of White Collars, Red Hands. And actually, if you sit through
(01:28):
this hour long episode, we will actually reward you with a free
trip to Jamaica. That's right.
But you have to pass a questionnaire at the end, yes.
And you have to actually make itthrough the whole time and
rotate 7 salespeople, Yes. Selling you our podcast merch.
Yes. And we're going to make it
(01:51):
really difficult for you. But you'll get that free
vacation. But you'll get it for sure.
There's just an upfront cost of $5000, yeah.
Yeah, actually, if you if you give me $5000, I'll get you a
vacation somewhere. Some anywhere.
No, not. No.
Specifically, not anywhere. Somewhere, somewhere.
Somewhere. Have you been to Omaha, NE?
Do you want? To do you want to nice place.
(02:13):
Well, welcome back to another episode of White Collars, Red
hands. I'm Kashan and I'm Nina.
And Omaha, NE is I don't know about a nice place.
I've never been. I haven't been either but I'm
just saying no one talks about but I'm sorry, Omaha IANS.
Omaha. IANS.
Whatever. Omaha.
I'm sure you have like some you're like, yeah, but the
(02:34):
weather here is very mild and. And we have a local cheese.
I don't care. You have something that's fine,
but no one has tried to sell it to.
Me, you have a very flat landscape.
And corn. And corn.
I forget Nebraska. So Nebraska Cornhuskers is a
football team that is one of theonly football teams I know.
(02:56):
I'm about to say, you say that like you're like, there's three
and that's one. Of them, there are three
football teams in the United States, and the Nebraska
Cornhuskers are one of them. You're correct.
So if you want a timeshare in Omaha, listen to this episode.
But what is a timeshare anyway? Do you know?
(03:17):
Do you want me to pretend I don't for?
I don't know. I'm just so curious if you know.
Yeah, of course I know what a. Timeshare is well, if you're
poor like me, you don't know anyone with a timeshare and you
don't really even know what it is.
Do rich people even have timeshares?
I think rich people just pay forthe vacations.
I don't know this. I feel like this is.
Very this is very middle. Timeshare is a very middle class
(03:37):
behavior. OK, well, I'm not middle class,
I'm poor, and my family never had a timeshare.
So time shares, they've been around for a while.
They've been around since 1969, and according to a 2020 study by
the American Resort Development Association, it has grown into a
$10.5 billion industry, which iscrazy.
(03:59):
So a timeshare is a type of vacation property with a shared
ownership model. So this means that when you buy
into a timeshare, you share the cost of the property with other
buyers. So you're investing into this
timeshare. When you do that, you are
guaranteed a certain amount of time at the property each year.
Most of the time timeshares are smaller units in a larger resort
(04:21):
property. Yeah, so it's like, it's like,
oh man, I want a new Maserati, but I can't afford it.
I'll pay 110th of the price of the Maserati and I'll drive it
three days a year and take pictures and and think I look
cool and then I'll never be ableto not own this Maserati.
Yeah, basically. Now there are different ways of
(04:43):
owning and buying into a timeshare.
Sometimes you actually end up buying a portion of the
property. This often depends on how much
time you plan on using the property.
And if it seems like this is a vacation spot that you and your
family would like, this might bethe ideal setup.
This is called a deeded timeshare.
(05:03):
Another way that you can get into a timeshare is to lease it
without actually owning it. So this is a non deeded
timeshare. Now non deeded time shares are
usually cheaper, however it's often harder to resell them
slash borderline impossible to get rid of them now.
Time shares often come with different amounts of time that
(05:24):
you can use them. There are fixed week time shares
which is when you can go to the same property for the same dates
each year. Floating, which is what gives
you the ability to use the property at any time depending
on its availability. Fractional, which gives you
access to the property for larger amounts of time, about up
(05:44):
to three months, and points where you buy points.
And this is where you can buy different amounts of time at
different time shares throughoutthe year.
So if you want to go to Utah forskiing, you can buy like these
points to go get a timeshare there.
(06:04):
If you want to go to Hawaii, youcan buy points to get a week in
Hawaii. That's how that works.
Wow sounds great and very uncomplicated and very
transparent. My non deeded fractional
timeshare was easy to acquire and easy to understand.
And was worth the money much better than buying a hotel.
(06:24):
The average timeshare costs between 22,000 and $24,000.
This has an upfront cost that you have to pay to buy into the
timeshare, and then it costs about $1000 per year in
maintenance fees. There's no way that that's
cheaper than just paying to go to a resort.
(06:48):
Like. I don't.
Once a year, yeah. The only way that I can now.
I-25 Grand. So the only way I I think this
is now I will say that these numbers are more current.
So if you had bought a timeshareback in the 70s, but still even
then with the with inflation, itprobably would have they.
(07:09):
Probably raise your. They probably raise your fees
too like it's. Oh yeah, 100%.
And then, yeah, like unless you're planning like let's say
it's in Hawaii or something, like somewhere super nice, like
unless you're good at. But then even still you're
paying $1000 every year 'cause Iwas going to say like if it's a
(07:32):
five star resort that you're going to once a week, you're
going every single year for 30 years.
I can like maybe see where this would work out, but then you are
paying an additional $30,000 in fees.
So it's like because it's $1000 each year.
So I don't really think that they're worth it to be honest
with you, nor would I ever purchase one of.
(07:53):
Course they're not worth it. You can't even go like you can't
go when you want. And you?
Can't even go like a lot. No, no, it's like usually for
most people buy I get it for a week at a time.
Yeah, once again, if they if they were like you have to lease
this Maserati, but it cost $100,000.
But for $15,000 right now plus $1000 every year, one week out
(08:16):
of the year you can drive. You know, that's a terrible.
Deal. It's stupid.
It's stupid. Just like everything has a kink,
you can also have a scam for everything, and today is no
exception. So now the scheme I'm going to
talk about today is directly correlated with one family.
But this is a massive problem that stretches throughout the US
(08:37):
and Canada. So today we're going to talk
about James. I don't have access to his last
name. He has remained last nameless
because of, well, you're gonna find out a little bit more
throughout the episode, but he wants to remain as anonymous as
possible. Yeah, so, so Schmucko.
Yeah, His last name is James Schmucko.
(08:57):
Yeah, there you go, James Doe. I don't know, Like Schmucko.
Schmucko's better so for today'sstories about James.
Now, James was a retired cop from California and his wife was
a school nurse. The couple is currently in their
early 70s now. James and his wife bought a
timeshare in 1996 in Lake Tahoe for $8900.
(09:19):
The family would go to the timeshare every other year with
their daughters, but as they gotolder and their children got
older, they weren't really usingthe timeshare as often and it
wasn't worth it because of maintenance fees.
In 2022, James gets a phone callfrom a company called Worry Free
Vacations that was based in Atlanta, GA.
He spoke to a man named Michael.Now, Michael asked James if he
(09:42):
wanted a timeshare. James informed him that he
already had a timeshare. Michael asked James if he would
be interested in selling becausethere's a Mexican businessman
who is interested in purchasing his timeshare.
Michael said that the business businessman wanted to buy the
timeshare for about $22,000, which was over double of what
(10:05):
James and his family paid for the timeshare in the 1st place.
I mean, you'd be stupid not to take this deal.
Wait, so this phone call startedwith I want to sell you a
timeshare and somehow quickly turned into I know a Mexican
businessman who wants to buy your other timeshare.
Yes. Wow, no, that's that's a above
(10:25):
board. That sounds, that sounds legit.
Yeah. Only people in their 70s are
still on the phone with this person at this point.
Yeah, yeah, and also only peoplein their 70s would answer a call
the of a caller they don't know.Yeah, fair.
I'm like, I am hanging up. Immediately.
Once you start talking to me about you're trying to sell me
(10:47):
anything, I just hang up. I'm like, I'm not even doing
this anymore. Yeah, interviewed, James told a
ERAARP. Well, that's a little over
double what we paid for it. So my wife and I said, well, why
not, We'll give it a shot. He sent over the paperwork.
We received e-mail copies of a contract from an from an escrow
company actually out of New YorkCity.
(11:10):
Everything looked reasonable. So James agrees to sell the
timeshare. Now, due to his background in
law enforcement, James is, you know, used to really checking
out the details and making sure that things are up to snuff.
And he does try to make sure that this is a legit set up.
He goes online and researches the man who wants to purchase
(11:32):
his timeshare and he sees that he is in fact a real person.
It turns out it turns out Juan Gonzalez is an actual.
Music in business man in Mexico.Juan Gonzalez.
You're like, everything checks out.
Yeah, there's a Facebook profileand everything.
Yeah, he saw that the buyer was a well respected man and was
(11:54):
very well known in his compute community.
A couple weeks after making the agreement, Michael and like
signing all the papers and stuff.
Michael calls James and tells him that he needs to send over
$2500 to facilitate the purpose the purchase of the timeshare.
This money would cover transfer and wire costs.
He was promised that the money would be refunded to him.
(12:16):
These fees would go directly to the Mexican government.
Now I am starting to see a red flag.
Why do I need to pay you to buy my thing?
That's not how this works, ever.But you know what?
I guess that that's why his lastname is Schmucker.
Right. So, well, as Kashawn said,
(12:38):
that's not how this works ever. I think to people who are more
tech savvy, people who are less trusting of people, OK, anyone
who's Gen. X or a millennial is never going
to fall for this. They probably unless, unless
(12:59):
they like grew up very sheltered, they're not going to
fall for this. Gen.
X might I want to. Count.
All right, well, millennial. A millennial's not going to fall
for this. Neither is a Gen.
Z person. Also, they aren't being able to
afford timeshares. But hell.
No man, I can't afford rent so you want me to buy another?
Property. A fucking timeshare.
(13:21):
But, you know, people fell, fellfor this, are falling for this.
And actually, in January of 2024, the FBI issued a warning
to owners of Timeshares to be onthe lookout for scammers.
And you know, I already started talking about this scam, but
this scam that happened with James is a textbook timeshare
(13:42):
scam. So what will normally happen is
that the owner of the timeshare will get a call from a quote UN
quote sales representative from a timeshare resale company
offering to sell or rent out their timeshare.
The sales Rep will use specific sales tactics to make it seem
like the sale is urgent and thatthe owner needs to act quickly
(14:02):
to sell their timeshare. Timeshare owners are told that
they need to pay upfront. Timeshare owners are told that
they need to pay an upfront fee when selling their timeshare
because it covers advertising fees and closing costs.
Once they pay those fees, it becomes harder and harder to
contact the companies. You get Commission on this sale,
(14:24):
why would I have to pay? Any of this to pay you?
You take it off the top and thenyou give me back the rest of the
profits. This is not how it ever works.
Now, not only do people get scammed by companies claiming to
sell their time shares, but theyalso in turn also get scammed by
fraudulent timeshare fraud recovery companies.
(14:46):
The fraudulent fraud recovery company promises the seller that
they'll get their money back, but not before paying an upfront
fee for the services. So you are getting scammed
back-to-back. So when you say the fraud
recovery company, yes, what is what is it that they're selling?
(15:08):
So they're contacting the personwho has sold their timeshare and
they're like. In the first fraud, so you're
saying they're they go through this first fraud of selling
their time. Yeah, so first of all, quote UN
quote sell their timeshare. They then realize, oh, I think
I've been scammed because I keepgiving these people money.
I'm not getting any money in return.
(15:29):
Then the timeshare fraud recovery company will be like,
hey, did you get scammed? Buy that timeshare resale plate
like by the by the company that said they were going to sell
your timeshare and they're like,yeah, I did get scammed by that
company. We'll take those guys down for
an easy upfront fee of 5000. Dollars.
Yeah. And they're like, oh, well,
(15:50):
we'll help you get your money back.
And Oh my God, thank you. Yeah.
It just costs like $5000 or however much they tell them it's
going to take for them to get their money back.
And then people fall for that again.
Man, that's smart. Yeah, if you can.
Have you been scammed by a Nigerian Prince?
Well, call me the Nigerian Prince catching services to
(16:10):
catch a Nigerian Prince Predator, you call this guy?
For an upfront fee of $5000, you'll have all the Nigerian
Princess in prison as you choose.
That's exactly what it is. Send me a fax.
And like a lot of these type of scams, they do target the
elderly because they are a bit easier to get and.
(16:31):
They're the ones with timeshares.
And they're the. Ones like we've already
mentioned. They're the ones with timeshares
now when being asked to pay all these upfront fees.
This didn't really cause any alarms with James because a lot
of these fees are fees that you would also pay in the US when
you're selling property. Doesn't make sense to me, but
that is what I But that's what Iwas reading.
(16:52):
That's why he wasn't alarmed. So James wires the money to an
account in Mexico. He gets confirmation that the
money went through, but now he needs to pay an additional fee.
Now this pattern continues. He pays one fee and then he's
told that he owes another. Now, James's wife becomes
suspicious of what's going on, but James assures her that
(17:14):
everything is OK. He's being told that once the
sale goes through, he will be reimbursed.
So he's being told like every fee that you pay us, we will
reimburse you. So he just keeps giving these
people money. James was also sent documents of
all the reimbursements that he is owned.
And so they were sending him like legit documents.
(17:37):
So he really thought that he wasgoing to get paid back.
But about a year later, James starts to ask questions.
He is taking an extra like this,is taking an extraordinary
amount of time to sell one timeshare and he wants his
money. Yeah, a year, yeah.
We're a year into this. But the sale needs to happen
very. Quickly, but it's got to happen
now. But then a year later we don't
(17:58):
have our money and I've actuallypaid you more money to sell my
timeshare. That doesn't even make sense.
So James starts asking for a partial release of the funds.
But every time he asked, he was told it couldn't happen because
there were complications and they couldn't give him his
money. He was told that he could pay
about $30,000 to reinvest that money that he's already paid
(18:21):
into an environmentally conscious development in Mexico.
So they're like, hey, we can't get you the money, but if you
give us 30 more $1000, we can actually reinvest this into our
property. So just just to keep track of
who this micro guy is, right? He sells timeshares for a
(18:42):
company in Georgia. But wait, you have one.
Don't worry. I know a Mexican businessman who
just happens to want to buy a timeshare to, oh, you know, I
actually have property development deals that you could
invest in in Mexico. Yeah.
And a lot of and and all the money that he was wire
transferring, he was wire transferring it to Mexico.
(19:06):
He wasn't. Well, that's where the
businessman is, right? I know.
That makes perfect sense. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, sounds legit. Now, this sounds like it is.
So this environmentally conscious development in Mexico
sounds like it is going to make him a huge return and that this
would be even more than he wouldmake by just selling the
timeshare. So now there's a whole new round
(19:28):
of fees that need to be paid in order to make this investment
happen. James, stop, please.
James estimates that he made a few dozen payments to the
company and this whole time James believed that he needed to
make these payments in order to get his money back, trusting the
whole time that his payments would become fruitful.
(19:48):
James ended up sending around $900,000 to Mexico in in a year
and a half, almost all of the money that he and his wife had
saved for their retirement. This also included the sale of
his childhood home. And $150,000 that he borrowed
(20:10):
from his daughter and son. son-in-law.
To make matters worse, James's wife was diagnosed with cancer.
During all of this, there's actually a recorded conversation
between him and the scammers where the scammers tell him that
they're like, hey, you need to send us more money.
You need to send us more money. And he's like, you can tell how
(20:31):
stressed out he is in this phonecall.
And he's like, dude, I don't have any more money.
Like, I sold my childhood home. I like, I've given you
everything. I need my money back.
And he's like, I didn't like I sold this child my childhood
home and I didn't see any of that money.
I sent it all to you because yousaid I needed to send you this
(20:51):
money in order to get my money back.
And then he's like my wife's in the hospital.
And the guy's like, I don't careif your wife's in the hospital,
blah, blah. Like the guy's like screaming at
him and he's like, I don't care if your wife's in the hospital
and you need to get this done because blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. Your money's on the line.
Like they were really convincinghim that like, if you didn't
send us more money, the money you've already given us is on
(21:12):
the line and you're not going tosee it back.
Like this literally makes these,I mean, listen, judgement of
sending the money aside, this makes me sick to my stomach.
Like I cannot even imagine beingcaught up in this type of
scheme. It's good that I'm poor because
(21:33):
they're not going to get any kind of money like that out of
me because I don't even have $50,000, let alone $900,000.
So and around this time his daughter can just tell something
isn't right and she contacts a law firm.
Now this whole thing went on forabout a year and a half between
2022 and it ended earlier in Oh no, it's a new year.
So ended in 2024. So during this time, James is
(22:00):
still in contact with the scammers.
They actually requested $157,000to clean up the entire mess,
which is crazy because like I'vegiven you 900 thousand, I've
almost given you $1,000,000 and now you're telling me that I
need to send you $157,000 to clean up a mess that you
(22:22):
created. Well, we all created it but.
Yeah, well, it's, it's almost like it's a scam.
It's almost. Like it's a scam and James
actually considered putting a second mortgage on his house to
pay that. It's sad.
It's clear that he wanted to believe that it was all
legitimate. Also some cost fallacy at some
point, right? It's like, it's like, well, I
(22:42):
got to keep going. I've already put so much money
in this. Instead of saying like, wait,
let me step back. And yeah, like.
Evaluate this just. Stop like and and cut my losses.
Yeah, it's hard for hard for people.
Well, but especially when you'vegiven them all your money like.
Well. Yeah, you really would have a
hard time admitting that. Like I fucked up.
(23:04):
Well, not all this money. You can still take that second
mortgage, right? No.
So he does contact a journalist,and the journalist asks James to
record the calls with the scammers, which actually James
had been doing the entire time. The journalist said that it was
clear that the scammers had gotten to know James extremely
well, so well that the rapport was very personal.
(23:24):
They they genuinely seemed like they cared about him and wanted
him to trust them. And obviously he did, or he
wouldn't have sent them all thatmoney.
They would then turn the conversation around to what
James needed to do to get his money back.
And the scammers had multiple people who were involved in this
who had called James for his money.
And like I said earlier with theguy who was like, your wife's in
(23:45):
the hospital, like we don't, we don't care like you need to
blah, blah, blah, blah. Like they would get really
aggressive. And one of them even claimed to
be working with the government. And then if, and he was saying
that if James didn't pay these fees that he would never get his
money back. James contacted the reporter to
help him figure out where his money was even going.
(24:07):
And this is when they find out who James was actually talking
to all along. So who was scamming James this
whole time? It was the Jalisco New
Generation cartel, one of the deadliest cartels in Mexico.
All of James's money was going to the banks in Jalisco state in
(24:28):
Mexico. So this scam, this whole
timeshare scam that just the Jalisco state, I'm sorry, the
Jalisco new generation was running, brought in about $300
million in the last five years, God.
(24:48):
They're really in everything, huh?
How? Everything.
How come this wasn't an episode in Narcos?
You know, just a bunch of peoplein in like a, a calling station
yelling at old white people being like, you got to give us
your money. And they're like my wife's in
the hospital, James. Fuck you, give us the money.
(25:09):
Please send over $250,000 right now.
So the potential for this to actually be more than $300
million is probably accurate because most of these scams are
not reported. The FBI estimates that only
about 20. The FBI.
(25:29):
The FBI estimates that only about 20% of these scams are
even being reported, mainly because people are embarrassed
that they get scammed. So the amount of money that
people are actually being scammed is way higher.
Cartels are doing this because frankly, running a cartel is
(25:49):
expensive. You got to pay off officials,
you got to maintain safe travelsfrom Mexico to America and also
the imports from Colombia, and you have to keep money coming
in. So cartels are diversifying
their streams of income. I feel like the cartels aren't
hurting for money. No, but you want to but like I.
I think they're greedy and they want.
(26:11):
More money, Yeah. I mean, they're definitely not
hurting for money. I'm just saying I don't think
they did this just to like, oh, we got to cover our operational.
Oh, no. Well, so I, you know, I think
like, you know, here's the thing, you've got one shipment
of drugs going to America. If that gets caught and shut
down, you're out how much? Millions of dollars because you
(26:32):
have that much cocaine. But if we've got this other
thing going on now, I don't haveto worry about like if this
cocaine deal gets shut down, if they, like, seize all these
kilos of coke, well, I'm scamming these old people.
No, Yeah, diversifying in the market is great.
I'm just saying that I don't think it's like.
Well, no, I'm just. The way you said it made it seem
like they they really no they don't.
(26:53):
Really need the money. The things are tight over at the
cartels. No, no, no, no.
The cartel is doing just fine. What I'm saying is is like
running a cartel is expensive. You're buying a lot of drugs,
you're having to cover, you're paying people off and you want
to diversify your streams of income.
They're also in the avocado business.
(27:14):
You know, they're, you know, they've got their fingers
everywhere. Why not in time shares?
So actually the Jalisco new generation start, this isn't new
for them to be involved with these timeshare scams.
This actually started about 15 years ago.
They were realizing that timeshare scams were very
profitable and there were timeshare scams all over the
(27:35):
country and they saw what a money maker it was and they
wanted in on it. And this scam is actually really
easy to run because you're just,it's just people in a call
center scamming old people. Yeah, it's not hard to run.
They do it great in India, yeah.So the cartel is probably like.
Well, if they can do it over there, we can do it over.
Here we can do that, yeah. We can scam people too.
(27:56):
So the cartel took over these time.
So the timeshare scams were already running.
They already had like their own buildings, everything.
But then the cartel was like, all right, well, we're just
going to take them over. So they took them over very
violently. When you are in Jalisco state,
when you are in Mexico, it's youdon't even know that these call
(28:17):
centers are call centers. They look like any other store.
But it is very dangerous to workthere.
I mean, you know, being involvedwith cartel is dangerous no
matter what. What?
About about eight people have died in the last year in
relation to working with the call centers that we know of.
(28:38):
They find English speakers and they don't even really tell them
exactly what they'll be doing for work.
Most of the time, they're led tobelieve that they're working for
the hotel industry. It's estimated that over 30
people have gone missing from the call centers since 2017.
So one of these call center employees said that when they
found out that they realized, like when they realized what
(28:58):
they were doing, they really wanted to leave.
They tried to leave. But the cartel is really
forceful and does some very graphic things to keep people
loyal and to keep people workingfor them.
Yeah, like they'll make you watch Garfield.
A tale of two kitties. Just like terrible tortures.
I think that that is their MO. I think that's actually what the
cartel is known for, for making people watch Garfield.
(29:19):
A tale of two kitties. Well, I don't think that's true,
because I think they also did itat Guantanamo Bay.
I believe that. Yeah, I'm I'm pretty sure.
They also made them watch Haroldand Kumar Guantanamo Bay.
Oh no, that movie, that movie, that movie rocks.
Though that's probably what theygot if they.
Had not after you watch it 500? If they had good behavior.
Not after you watch it 500. Yeah, but Garfield, A Tale of
Two Kitties is bad the first time.
That's all I. Never.
(29:39):
I never, you know, I never saw that, right?
You are amongst a a very large group of people then.
Yeah, all. Right, so the the cartel gets a
hold of the timeshare owner's info by bribing or threatening
hotel resorts that the time shares are located at and forces
them to give out phone numbers of the people who have stayed
(30:00):
there. The callers are then given a
script on what to say to get their money.
Authorities know that this is going on, but they aren't really
doing much in regards to this. They're not really shutting down
the call centers, and they're not asking banks to do checks to
see where the money's coming from.
I mean, like in every country. But we're gonna like, this is
(30:21):
true everywhere, but organized crime is huge in Mexico.
It's. Especially true and I think we
can say it's especially. True.
That's true in Mexico. And the tourist industry also is
huge. In Mexico, the authorities have
really no incentive to stop timeshare crime because it will
hurt their tourist industry. If people know that this is
(30:41):
going on and they know that theycould potentially know what is
going on, they could potentiallydecide that they don't want a
vacation in police go anymore and they could choose to go
somewhere else. When the reporter told James
that the cartels were behind allof this, he had a really hard
time believing it. His lawyer advised him to quit
(31:02):
picking up the phone and after not picking up the phone for a
while, the calls finally stoppedcoming in.
When James said that he didn't want to believe that he got
duped, quote, I didn't want to believe that I could be fooled.
It's hard to say if James or anyof the other victims will ever
get their money, but all they can do now is come forward so
(31:25):
that others do not fall for the same scam and hopefully one day
they might have justice. So This is why we can't have
nice things because the cartel takes them.
Although this that's a joke, it is a reality for many people who
have had their life savings stripped away from them from
(31:47):
money hungry drug dealers acrossthe border.
Unfortunately, these fraudulent companies prey on the elderly
people like James who are easilymanipulated and are so good at
what they do that they'll drain you for every penny you have.
Hopefully these people will be brought to justice, however,
it's unlikely. Man, we didn't even get into how
(32:07):
timeshares themselves are mostlyscams.
Oh yeah, they are scams. I mean you.
They're impossible to get out of.
Yeah, they're designed to be impossible to get out of.
They try to get you to sign it over to your kids when you when
you die so that they can still get money from your children.
Like it's like, it's crazy. And we actually didn't talk
(32:27):
about this, so I'll talk about it now.
Soon. There is like getting into a
timeshare is so hard to get out of.
Yeah, it's it's damn near impossible.
That much like the fraudsters that get you out of the, the
like selling the timeshare scheme, there are those for
timeshares that'll be like we are, we are like lawyers that
(32:50):
specialize in negotiating getting out of timeshare
contracts. But but, and then they just
move. They like take your money and
move their offices and like leave.
Oh my God, yeah. And I know I referenced that
joke at the beginning that like this is like you just have to
sit through this hour long podcast and we'll give you the
free trip. That is something timeshares do.
(33:13):
They say, they say you'll get a free trip to Disneyland if you
come and you listen to our timeshare pitch and they do.
It's like predate. They sit you down and they
rotate through salespeople. Super predatory.
I don't remember the name of thecreator.
I wish I could plug it right now, but there is there's a guy
on YouTube that he went through this whole process knowing it
(33:34):
was a scam to see how hard it was to get the free vacation and
he did it. They finally gave him like like
a plane ticket. It was like to Disney at
Disneyland or Disney World. They finally gave him like like
a round trip like economy class ticket and a hotel room and like
(33:55):
tickets to Disneyland like they got it.
But what he went through to get it?
Was probably so extreme. Was crazy.
So if you have time you want to learn more about like the actual
like like how time shares themselves are a scam.
You know what I'll I'll I'll putthe thumbnail to the video here
in our video because it was great.
I remember watching it and it was really enlightening.
So go check that out. Yeah, and if you liked what you
(34:18):
heard today and you want more ofit, you can check us out on
social media. We are on facebook.com/white
Collars Red Hands. We're on Twitter at White
Collars Pod, we're on Instagram at White Collars under score,
Red Hands. We are on TikTok at White
Collars Red Hands, and we are also on YouTube at White Collars
Red Hands. If you want another freeways to
(34:40):
support us, please leave us a review.
We are on Apple Podcast and Spotify.
Both of those are places that you can leave reviews.
We love A5 star review, but an honest review is we'll always
take an honest review. If you want an unfree way to
support us, please do so by purchasing some merch.
Kashawn has his T-shirt on rightnow.
(35:02):
You can go over to our website while white collars,
redhands.com. Click on that merch tab.
It'll take you on over to T public and you can buy some of
our merch. Another freeway to support us is
by telling a friend. Word of mouth is a great way to
spread podcast news. And yeah, we'd love for you and
your friends to, you know, have a podcast club instead of a book
(35:25):
club. You listen to the podcast and
then you talk about it. But it what like a fucking
Midwest ass thing for you to recommend?
Like what the fuck? I've never even heard of it
before, but I just I that's because it's.
Not a thing. That's such a weird thing.
We can make it a thing. Oh, that's a book club, but with
podcasts. I guess book don't get me
(35:47):
started. OK, because Sean was not allowed
to join a book club and is clearly butthurt about it.
I'm kidding. I was allowed to join.
That's how I read all the 50 Shades of Grey books.
Oh. Hot.
I'm joking, I haven't read those.
I lost track of what I was saying.
Oh. If you find or hear of a white
(36:07):
collar Crime Story that you think we should cover, please
send it our way. You can e-mail it to us at White
Collars Red hands@gmail.com. We try to do a fan submitted
episode every single season and we would love to do yours next.
And I think that's it. Sounds it.
All right, well, thank you so much for listening.
And we'll see you on another episode of White Collars, Red
(36:28):
Hands.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!