Aguilar and other members of a conspiracy contacted timeshare owners, claimed to be representatives of companies that were interested in purchasing timeshares, and offered to purchase their timeshares. To make their offers seem legitimate they would refer the timeshare owners to attorneys, who the conspirators indicated would represent the timeshare owners during the exit process. These attorneys were real licensed attorneys, whose names and identities were used without their knowledge or permission.
The conspirators emailed purchase agreements on attorney letterhead to the timeshare owners that included the purchase price that the buyers were paying, stated that the buyer would pay any associated fees, and indicated that any additional fees the timeshare owner needed to pay to sell and transfer the timeshare would be added to the purchase price, so that the owner would recoup those additional fees.
After a timeshare owner signed a purchase agreement, a member of the conspiracy would contact the timeshare owner falsely claiming to be a representative of a Mexican government agency or another authority requesting payment of fees, taxes, or other costs before the sale could be completed. Many timeshare owners paid these fees and taxes.
But the scam didn’t stop there. The conspirators would often inform the timeshare owner of more fees that needed to be paid; and many timeshare owners paid those additional fees, and the process repeated until the timeshare owner finally stopped paying the fees requested.
Even worse, the timeshare owners never received any sales proceeds.
Read the official case details on the United States Attorney’s Office here: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/mexican-national-who-participated-timeshare-fraud-scheme-sentenced