'Mom, Help Me!': A sinister billion-dollar 'cyber' kidnapping scam, born in Mexican prisons and perfected by Chinese gangs, has come to America. And there is one foolproof way to protect yourself and your family

The call comes out of the blue. You may recognize the number.

“We have your daughter,” a strangely menacing voice calls on the line. “Send us money or she will die.”

“Mommy, please help.” Your heart stops. It is your child's voice.

Panicked, a family does whatever they are told to secure the release of their loved one after an apparent kidnapping, including immediately transferring tens of thousands of dollars to a specific account or even dropping a bag of money on a street corner.

Hours or even minutes later, the dust has settled and a bewildered daughter, vacationing in Mexico or skiing on a remote mountainside, checked her phone and learned of the chaos. The truth of the scam would sink in: no one was ever in danger.

Called 'virtual' or 'cyber kidnapping', it first emerged in the 1990s as a modern twist on an old scam. Quite simply, it is an extortion scheme where criminals convince unsuspecting people that their family members are in danger.

Now, with the widespread availability of artificial intelligence, advanced video communications and mobile phones, the scam has morphed into something significantly more sophisticated, terrifying and incredibly lucrative – worth billions of dollars in illegal profits.

On New Year's Eve, police in Utah rescued a 17-year-old Chinese exchange student who had been convinced by criminals to run away from his American host family and lock himself in a tent in the snow-covered hills above the town of Riverdale. . There he created fake 'ransom photos' – which his tormentors sent to his family in China.

His terrified parents paid $80,000 to secure his release. They didn't realize that he was never actually detained, but rather brainwashed into willingly participating in the scam.

“They are telling the victims to self-isolate and monitoring them via FaceTime calls or Skype,” said Riverdale Police Chief Casey Warren. “The victims comply out of fear that their families will suffer harm if they do not.”

It's not clear exactly what these scammers told the teenager, Kai Zhuang, that convinced him to believe such a bizarre trick, but he apparently became an unwitting accomplice anyway. He was discovered by police 'very cold and scared' and in need of a hot cheeseburger, but was otherwise unharmed.

Riverdale police said the crime was new to them, but fraudsters have been perfecting the scam for decades.

Mike Vigil, the former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's international operations, first encountered the scheme more than two decades ago in Mexico. “It became a cottage industry, run by people both inside and outside the Mexican prison system,” he told DailyMail.com. Convicts bribed prison guards to give them cell phones, after which the crooks opened the phone book and started calling numbers at random.

“Criminals made money very quickly, and it was easy to do,” Vigil explains. “And when a plan is successful, other criminal gangs notice it and start copying it.”

By the mid-2000s, the scam had spread and is now operated by syndicates from China and the Philippines.

Police in Sydney, Australia, noted a rise in cyber kidnappings in 2020, with at least 11 cases involving ransoms worth $2.6 million. Chinese foreign exchange students were targeted and told by a Mandarin-speaking fraudster, claiming to be from the Chinese government or police, that there was a problem with their visa or passport.

They took advantage of young Chinese's belief that they were being watched by the state, and their fear of the overarching power of the authorities, and they would comply. The brands were convinced to fake ransom photos, which were sent to family members.

The images are shocking: a young woman lies on the floor, a blindfold over her eyes, her hands apparently tied behind her back, with a large kitchen knife placed menacingly in front of her. A young man sits half-naked, wearing only underwear, on a cold tiled floor, his legs tied at the ankles with bloody rope. Another woman is depicted on the ground with torn clothing, her knees pressed to her chest.

Kai Zhuang's case in Utah bears a strong resemblance to this Australian scam – and has led the Chinese embassies in Washington DC, Sydney and London to reiterate their warnings this week to be on their guard. But these new-age kidnappers are using increasingly imaginative ways to deceive people.

In April, Arizona mother Jennifer DeStefano received a call from an unknown number while her 15-year-old daughter Briana was on a ski vacation.

She remembers hearing her own daughter's voice crying and sobbing and saying, “Mom, these bad men have me. Help me, help me.'” DeStefano said she had no doubt it was her child.

“It was her bow. It was the way she would have cried,” DeStefano recalled. 'I never doubted for a second that it was her. That's the crazy part that really brought me to my core.”

Yet it wasn't DeStefano's Briana. The scammers demanded $1 million, but DeStefano's husband managed to confirm that Briana was fine before they paid.

The voice Jennifer DeStefano heard was likely generated by artificial intelligence. Using deepfake technology, criminals can even use short snippets of videos posted on social media to create realistic impersonations.

Virtual kidnappers have also hacked into contact lists or scoured their victims' social media to create wildly convincing lies.

A Houston man had his phone hacked in May 2022 and received a call from his mother's number. A voice on the other end of the line said they had her and they would harm her unless he transferred $900 through the payment app Venmo – which he quickly did.

A few minutes later, his brother replied to his panicked text, saying their parents were asleep upstairs, their phones with them, unaware of the scam.

“If someone calls and asks for money, hanging up is always the best tactic,” cybercrime expert Adam Levin told DailyMail.com.

Levin, host of the podcast What The Hack, advised that one should contact the police immediately and try to reach their loved one.

He also suggests listening for signs of strange noise: perhaps repetition of sentences, an unusual pause, or talking over you. That could indicate that the chillingly familiar voice you hear is a pre-recorded fake.

Creating a safe word that only family members know is a foolproof safeguard, Levin says. Ask the apparent victim to recite the word or phrase. If you can't, it's a scam.

Don't get caught up in the hysteria.

“Scammers always rely on a panic theory,” Levin warns. 'Stay calm.'

Although – that's always easier said than done.