Con Artists Posing as Ice Agents Are Using WhatsApp to Bilk Vulnerable People Out of Their Savings
Asylum-seeker Jasmir Urbina was defrauded of nearly $10,000 by scammers posing as legal aid workers on WhatsApp, who falsely claimed to represent Catholic Charities and helped her prepare for an immigration hearing. She was misled into believing she had won residency and missed her actual court date, leading to her arrest by ICE agents. The scam is part of a broader pattern of 'notario fraud' targeting vulnerable immigrants who confuse notaries in Latin America with licensed attorneys in the U.S.
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This story was originally published by ProPublica. As an asylum-seeker living in the U.S., Jasmir Urbina worried as she watched violence break out amid the military-style immigration sweeps across the country. Then she read about legal residents being arrested at immigration court and wondered when federal agents would set their sights on her city.cnx.cmd.push(function(){cnx({"playerId":"92b7b46b-43ed-4e0e-b21b-2c999302d9d7","settings":{"advertising":{"macros":{"AD_UNIT":"/23178111854/od.gizmodo.com/article","CHILD_UNIT":"article","POST_ID":"2000753316","POST_TYPE":"post","CHANNEL":"tech","SECTION":"privacy-and-security","SUBSECTION":"","CATEGORIES":"privacy-and-security","TAGS":"ice,scams,whatsapp","NOP":"0"},"timeBeforeFirstAd":0}}}).render("cnx-player-main")}); Urbina had fled…
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