Your timeshare in Mexico may actually be helping prop up that country’s violent drug cartels, the U.S. government said Wednesday, warning Americans to think twice before buying south of the border.
Treasury and State Department officials said cartels have stolen lists of American timeshare owners and are using call centers to offer sales or rental services, charging fees up front. Americans pay, but the services are never delivered, with the money ending up funding the cartels themselves.
It’s the latest in diversification for the cartels, whose core drug business has in recent years been heavily supplemented by migrant smuggling and oil theft.
The FBI collected nearly 900 complaints of Mexico timeshare fraud last year, totaling more than $50 million — and authorities said the real total is probably much higher, because most victims don’t report it.
U.S. officials announced sanctions on members of four people and 13 firms connected to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG, which they said has become particularly prolific at the timeshare scam.
“These cartels continue to create new ways to generate revenue to fuel their terrorist operations,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. “At President Trump’s direction, we will continue our effort to completely eradicate the cartels’ ability to generate revenue, including their efforts to prey on elderly Americans through timeshare fraud.”
The sanctions are the latest in the Trump administration’s intensifying effort to defang the cartels — and CJNG in particular.
Earlier this month, the Treasury Department froze assets of a “narco-rapper” who dedicated half of his music streaming revenue to CJNG.
And in May, the government slapped sanctions on figures and companies accused of helping CJNG’s oil theft operations, which include diverting crude from sources in Mexico then smuggling it to importers in the U.S., who disperse it into the American economy.
Fuel theft has become the second-largest source of income, following drugs, U.S. officials said.
Migrant smuggling had been earning the cartels billions of dollars a year under the Biden administration, but the unprecedented plunge in border activity has sapped that source of money, experts said.
For the timeshare fraud, authorities said CJNG took over the market around Puerto Vallarta, on Mexico’s west coast. It likely paid unscrupulous timeshare operators for lists of American owners, then used call centers with fluent English speakers to pose as U.S.-based operations looking to do business.
They offer chances to sell off or handle renting of a timeshare.
“If an unsolicited purchase or rental offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Those considering the purchase of a timeshare in Mexico should conduct appropriate due diligence,” the Treasury Department said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.