Police stop ‘virtual kidnapping attempt’ in San Luis Rio Colo.

SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Son. — Police here intervened this week to prevent a “virtual kidnapping” in which scammers tried to force members of a family to pay ransom for one another’s release.

The scam originated in Mexicali, Baja Calif., where a 30-year-old brother and her 28-year-old brother were contacted by phone and told their mother had been kidnapped in that city, municipal police in San Luis Rio Colorado said.

The anonymous caller told them to travel to San Luis Rio Colorado, check into a motel there and wait for further instructions, police said.

Unbeknownst to them, police said, scammers had called their mother and likewise said her children had been abducted, in what was an apparent attempt to solicit ransom payments from both sets of victims. Police did not specify the amount of money the scammers sought.

State police in Baja California unraveled the plot and provided police in San

Luis Rio Colorado with the description of the vehicle the siblings drove.

Municipal police located the siblings at a motel near the border Tuesday night and reunited them with their mother.

No suspects have been arrested in the case.

Virtual kidnapping is a crime that occurs on both sides of the border, with the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office receiving several reports in recent months from residents who are contacted by scammers posing as abductors of loved ones.

The scams take on different forms, but callers sometimes present themselves as Mexican cartel members demanding money for the safe return of a loved one, sheriff’s Lt. Samuel Pavlak said. None of the calls reported to YCSO resulted in money being paid to scammers.

Pavlak urges anyone who gets such a call to report it immediately.

“Anytime they get calls or solicited in any way, especially if there are threats tagged to it, call law enforcement. It’s something we would want to be made aware of.”