Thread by @InsiderNews

About 10 years ago, when Erik Arbuthnot first heard about phony-kidnapping hustles, his fellow agents at the FBI scoffed at the cases.

Now they have become so widespread that the bureau has a name for them: virtual kidnappings.

Here's what's going on.👇

businessinsider.com/virtual-kidnap…

Last year, Richard Mendelstein, a soft-spoken 56-year-old software engineer at Google, received a call. On the other end of the line, Mendelstein heard his daughter sobbing in fear.

"They kidnapped me!" she screamed. "Dad, please help!"

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Over the past few years, thousands of families like the Mendelsteins have experienced the same bizarre nightmare: a phone call, a screaming child, a demand for ransom money, and a painful kidnapping that is revealed to be fake.

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What Arbuthnot calls the "explosion" of kidnapping hoaxes started in the summer of 2015.

Like any other telemarketing pitch, these calls are essentially a numbers game.

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The recordings are generic productions, designed to ensnare as many victims as possible.

From there, either you don't have a kid, or suspect something is amiss, and hang up.

Or, like many parents, you panic at the sound of a terrified child.

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Under their command, your panic may drive you to offer up additional details the kidnappers can make use of, like your last name or home address.

Now, thanks to Google, they know your name, where you work and live, and your other children's names.

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Other elements are taken straight from the classic con playbook:

Don't give the mark time to think or talk to anyone.

Get them to withdraw cash and wire it somewhere untraceable.

Convince them any deviation from your instructions will cost them.

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Who was behind these calls remained a mystery until a woman went to retrieve a ransom in person and a camera caught her license plate.

She was the girlfriend of Ismael Brito Ramirez, who was serving time in Mexico City on murder and kidnapping charges.

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While in prison, Ramirez had decided to move into virtual kidnapping.

Ramirez smuggled some burner phones into the prison and set up a system for collecting ransom payments.

Prosecutors say the network set up by Ramirez scammed nearly 40 people.

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Despite charges against Ramirez and others with similar schemes, virtual kidnappings have spread to prisons in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

It raises the question: How do you stop a crime being committed by someone you've already caught?

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There is little likelihood that the explosion in virtual kidnappings will abate anytime soon.

The FBI lacks the capacity to track so many random phone calls and small wire transfers coming from so many directions at once.

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For now, the FBI is left trying to educate the public about how to spot the scams. Their advice? "Just hang up," Arbuthnot said.

Public awareness might cut into the profits of virtual kidnappers, but it won't put them out of business.

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Arbuthnot suspects kidnappers will soon make deepfakes with audio of real kids from online, manipulating it to sound like a plea for help; all it takes free software, Google, and time. And if there's one thing virtual kidnappers have, it's plenty of time.

businessinsider.com/virtual-kidnap…

Subscribe to @thisisinsider to read more about virtual kidnappings. 👇

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