They are placed in various parts of the Mexico City or on vehicle windshields; there, they offer jobs, prizes, trips and warns about traffic finesmainly affect older adults and are called by the Cyber Police Unit like the fraud of the QR.
The excess of trust y ignorance about the new technologiesplaced older adults as the most vulnerable sector of these scams that end up stealing their personal data, impersonation or looting their savings, he warned Marisol Sanchezspokesperson for the Cyber Police.
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In an interview with 24 HORAS, this official of the Secretary of Citizen Security (SSC) urged capital families to support grandparents or older adults so that they do not open these barcodes since they expose their information and their bank accounts.
Marisol Sanchez detailed that although they do not have an approximate figure on the data of defrauded people, since they are legal processes under investigation that are open, since October 2024 they have received multiple telephone complaints about these frauds.
Fraud in Latin America
The SSC official, from the Cyber Police Unit, explained that these illicit They had already appeared in Latin America, mainly in Peru y Colombia, where place QR in vehicles simulating a vehicle violation or in shopping centers to offer trips or prizes to whoever open the information.
“They may be stuck on public transportation, in a shopping plaza, offering you a job,” he reiterated.
However, many times this code links to pop-up pages, where cybercriminals look for the personal information of whoever opened them, with that data they can carry out identity theft, he added.
Sánchez warned that later these criminal groups ask people for information such as bank accounts, name, economic position and address in order to be able to empty accounts or create fake profiles.
Likewise, they place QR codes randomly on parked vehicles to simulate a traffic violation, he insisted.
“When you enter your vehicle you find a QR code where it tells you that you have a fine. At that moment, citizens scan it and may find that they want to steal personal information,” the officer explained.
How the Scam Works
With these QR los cybercriminals They make use of apocryphal sites that supplant the identity of official institutions, banks or recognized companies in order to confuse their victims and obtain their information.
“Sometimes, official pages are not aware that they have been impersonated. When you fall into these cybercriminal traps, it is important to report them to the Cyber Police to verify,” he asked.
Therefore, they urged the citizenship Because, if you have elderly people, you must take care of them, because they are the ones who lack these technology scams.
“We have the case of theft of accounts from WhatsAppor the issue of downloading applications without knowing terms and conditions, where they begin to extort them, for not knowing what we download,” he explained.
For this reason, it is recommended to activate two-step verification in WhatsApp and do not share the code with unknown people; In addition, not to enter unverified internet sites, or suspicious links received via email or electronic message.