“Beware of ‘Montadeudas’: The Growing Threat of App-based Extortion”

There are inexplicable stories, but they happen every day. Angela, 41 years old, lost her job. She needed money and found the solution on Facebook (bad omen). She downloaded the mobile application Cartera Grande for quick loans.

He asked for 2,900 pesos, which he was given immediately without formalities or requirements or review at the credit bureau. The money fell into his account so, shall we say, almost free and very cheap.

Angela only had to do one thing. Just one. Something we do every day from our mobile phone or computer. Surely you, the reader, have done it in the last month: grant access to a third party, an app, a web page or a service, of your personal cell phone data.

Ángela, 41 years old, unemployed, two children: that is where her martyrdom began. Without respecting the payment terms or her interest, she was told that she already owed 4,200 pesos. They began to harass her: calls, messages. They all said the same thing: we have your photos, we are going to smear you with your acquaintances, we are going to spread your information. The cruelty was redoubled with the sending of videos of executions by organized crime and a message: “This is going to happen to you if you don’t pay.”

Juan Villoro says that reality, which occurs without asking for permission, does not have to seem authentic. What solution did Angela find? Borrow more money… in other similar apps… Teomlacash, Happy Coins, Smart Tabo and AMPLECASH…

“I asked but since they charged me a lot, I asked another to complete what was done for one and that’s how it was done to me. And when I couldn’t, well, I asked them to give me an opportunity to raise money, but they told me that I had to pay, that I had 20 minutes, that they couldn’t give me more, that if I didn’t care about my life, “he said.

Until he denounced and asked for help.

Only last year, the Condusef disabled 600 fraudulent applications that used this modus operandi. The CDMX Citizen Council for Security and Justice prepared a list of 718 applications and web pages that use this extortion method (I share it on my Twitter @jnlomeli). The increase in cases is exponential. They are directed above all to a low socioeconomic stratum with loans of 500 pesos to 20 thousand.

I spoke with Salvador Guerrero, president of the Council. In their campaign against this form of extortion, they baptized the phenomenon as “montadeudas”.

In Jalisco they register 357 reports from June 2021 to date. They are direct calls from the victim to the telephone number 55 55 33 55 33 of the Council to ask for help. 60%, Salvador tells me, are women.

The first thing they are asked to do is download the No More Extortions-No More XT app, which blocks hundreds of phones from which criminals call their victims. Then they guide them to report and give them psychological support (some call almost in a catatonic state due to anguish).

As part of their investigations, Salvador tells me, they have indications that the funds that criminals give to their victims are of illegal origin, since the money often comes from Shanghai, Bogotá or anywhere in the world. “It is money that comes from everywhere and that they are trying to place or launder so that it enters different markets such as easy loans.”

The lesson is clear: “There is no such thing as free or cheap money,” he concludes – and here this maxim should be applied to formal bank payroll loans, money-giver dealers, department stores and anyone who seeks to take advantage of the financial stress of the people like the “montadeudas” -.

jonathan.lomelí@informador.com.mx