Mexico: Criminal groups recruit young people through video games on their cell phones

Mexican authorities warned this Tuesday about the use of online gaming platforms on mobile phones, where criminal groups enter to convince young people and involve them in illicit activities.

The Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection (SSPC), through the General Directorate of Service Management, Cybersecurity and Technological Development, explained in a statement that the “growth of this sector is due to the easy access and versatility of smartphones.”

“It has been detected that criminals take advantage of the hours [in] which minors play to gain their trust and subsequently invite them to participate in criminal activities with promises of high income or they are threatened,” he indicates.

The agency also points out that the most frequently used video games are those that share graphic violence and represent war situations or combats with the use of weapons, where the objective is to take the lives of the characters used by other players.

The alert about this modus operandi began in 2021 when authorities located three minors between the ages of 11 and 14 from the southern state of Oaxaca, who were recruited through the Garena video game, “Free Fire.”

A criminal group had offered them $200 a week to monitor certain radio frequencies from a point in the north of the country and notify the cartel if security forces arrived.

According to a global data and business intelligence company on statistics and information, Mexico is the second most important country in Latin America in the video game market, so it is necessary to take measures to protect young people.

In the statement, the SSPC issued some recommendations in order to ensure safer browsing for minors, such as the use of parental control, supervision, establishing schedules for the use of video games, purchasing video games in legal versions and official markets, among others. others.