WASHINGTON (TND) — The FBI is warning about a scam known as cyber kidnapping after a 17-year-old Chinese exchange student in Utah fell victim to the crime.
Police found the student in a tent and said scammers demanded an $80,000 ransom from his family.
Cyber kidnapping, also called virtual kidnapping, can take on different forms but it is always an extortion scheme; however, despite the name, scammers don’t actually kidnap anyone.
Instead, they contact family members claiming they have and demand a quick ransom or say the person is injured and won’t receive medical attention until the money is wired.
These scammers are known to target foreign exchange students, specifically from China.
In one instance, the cyber kidnapper will contact the student and the family abroad, telling each that the other is in danger. They demand money from the family, while telling the student to isolate and will even have the student take pictures staged to make it look like a real kidnapping.
There’s another version where scammers pretend to be Chinese police, telling the student they are being investigated for a crime in China and need to pay to avoid being arrested.
It starts with a fake phone call from a Chinese embassy, where the victim is told their information is linked to a subject or a victim of a financial fraud investigation. Then, the scammer pretends to be a Chinese police officer and threatens to arrest the victim, requiring them to consent to 24/7 video and audio monitoring to prove their innocence. In the final step, scammers will instruct the victim to wire a large sum of money to a Chinese bank account to post bail and avoid having to return to China.
This is not a new scam – in fact, it has been happening for at least 20 years, according to the FBI.
These cases are extremely hard to investigate and prosecute because the scammers are typically in different countries where the U.S. has no jurisdiction.
The FBI says the schemes used to be limited to Mexico and southwest border states. Almost all of them came from Mexican prisons and targeted specific people – mainly in Houston and Los Angeles – who spoke Spanish.
However, in 2015, the calls started coming in English and weren’t targeted at specific people. Instead, they were cold calls to random victims in a bunch of different cities.
In one case, more than 80 victims were identified in California, Minnesota, Idaho and Texas with a collective loss of more than $87,000.
This isn’t isolated to the U.S. Police in Australia have reported an increase in cyber kidnappings, specifically cases involving Chinese exchange students, since at least 2020.
China’s consulate in Toronto, as well as the Chinese embassies in the U.K. and Japan, have also issued warnings about the scheme.
