In an effort to foil criminals who have taken advantage of the recent climate of fear in the lakeside area to prey on unwary residents, leaders of the Chapala Security Initiative (CSI) and police department chief Reynol Contreras lined up a June 1 orientation session to educate the public on the ins and outs of telephone extortion scams.
The featured speaker was Guillermo Castan, an expert on the topic from Jalisco’s Public Security Ministry. He outlined the various modus operandi and wily psychological tactics crooks commonly employ to con people into paying hefty sums of cash to retrieve bogus contest prizes, get relatives out of trumped up troubles with the authorities or shell out “ransoms” for fake kidnappings.
Extortionists commonly use harsh language to instill panic and get the upper hand. A pattern recognized in recent incidents at lakeside involves a caller identifying himself as a member of the Zeta cartel who claims to be holding a close relative. He threatens to hack up the captive unless a negotiated sum is deposited into banking accounts set up in business enterprises such as Soriana, Coppel and Banca Azteca.
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