In what appears to be a sprawling criminal enterprise that combined luxury timeshare properties with dark underworld tactics, a senior member of the Mexican Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) and his half-sister have been slapped with an array of charges including wire fraud, money laundering, and providing support to a foreign terrorist organization. Julio Cesar Montero Pinzon, known by various aliases, and Griselda Margarita Arredondo Pinzon were both implicated in the international fraud scheme that specifically targeted American timeshare owners in Mexico. The announcement of the indictment was made public by multiple high-ranking officials and representatives from agencies including the FBI and DEA, as noted in a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York.
While the two accused remain at large in Mexico, the impact of their alleged criminal activities reverberated across the border, affecting thousands of American timeshare owners. CJNG's timeshare fraud, which reportedly began around 2012, duped timeshare owners into paying advance fees with the false promise of later profits from sales or rentals. Describing the breadth of the scheme, Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement obtained by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, “The CJNG and other cartels are on notice: no scheme, plot, or conspiracy will evade the reach of this Justice Department.”
Following the designation of CJNG as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist earlier in February 2025, Montero Pinzon continued to orchestrate the timeshare fraud and engage in laundering victim funds. This brazen act underscores the cartel's disregard for international law and the measures taken by U.S. authorities to restrict its operations. The charges, if proven, could land the defendants with up to 20 years’ imprisonment on each count, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The multi-million-dollar scheme did not just hurt individual investors; it had significant ripples throughout communities, fueling further criminal activities of the cartel. As explained by Harry T. Chavis, Jr., IRS-CI New York Special Agent in Charge, "Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion ran this timeshare fraud scheme like a business, with each member playing a role—finding the investors to victimize, manipulating the docs and online sites, moving and hiding the money, and securing funds to purchase and distribute deadly narcotics into the United States" Perhaps most distressing is the sheer volume of the losses reported: approximately 6,000 U.S. victims have confronted an estimated $350 million in losses due to Mexican timeshare fraud between the years 2019 and 2024, as per the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
With the case now being handled by the Office’s Business and Securities Fraud Section and International Narcotics and Money Laundering Section, along with assistance from the Justice Department Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch, there is a concentrated effort to dismantle the deep reach of this criminal organization. U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also sanctioned both Montero Pinzon and his half-sister for their involvement in the scheme. Victims of timeshare fraud are being advised to file a complaint at IC3.gov and can seek further resources through the FBI Timeshare Fraud Victim Resource Page.
