A Southern California man’s search for work on Craigslist nearly turned into a nightmare when what seemed like a legit elderly care gig turned into a potential trafficking or mule scheme.
The operation, which was complete with what appeared to be a fake patient, someone dressed as a nurse, and some blank, “sealed” documents, illustrates how criminals are exploiting job seekers in a challenging economy.
The video, which has over 1.3 million views, details a case adding to a list of criminals targeting people who could be desperate enough to possibly overlook red flags while luring them toward the Mexican border, or into illegal activity.
Southern California Man Finds Job Ad On Craigslist
A TikToker with the handle @crenteria, who recently returned to California, had been looking for work. He found a Craigslist listing for a driver gig. “I find one for an old lady who supposedly has Parkinson’s. She needs a driver because she can’t drive herself, so they’re offering to pay me to drive her to her daily things and whatever she needs,” he says.
After texting the listing to inquire, Renteria received a call. “They tell me, ‘Hey, we want to set this up with you. Can you drive?'” he recalls. They also ask him if he has an driver’s license, two additional forms of I.D., and access to a vehicle. When they asked him to drive to San Diego to pick up the woman and bring her back to Riverside, he agreed. “I’m free today. I got some time, so I’ll go ahead and do it.”
To be clear, the drive to San Diego is roughly an hour-and-a-half, if you’re really moving and traffic is exceptionally favorable. At best, the back-and-forth alone would be three hours.
In San Diego, he met with a man dressed in a nurse’s outfit, wearing gloves, and an older woman with a mask, presumably to protect against COVID or the flu. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, so this is the deal. You’re gonna take her home. You’re gonna take her to wherever she needs to go for her stuff, and we’ll pay you. Let me give you some money for gas. What’s your Cash App?'” Renteria says.
Was This Craigslist Job Ad a Human Trafficking Scheme?
Then the situation changed. “He’s like, ‘Here’s actually some paperwork we’re gonna give you, and you gotta take this to our other doctor because he needs this for her to finish the treatment,'” Renteria says. “He’s like, ‘Here’s the address. It’s gonna tell you you’re going across the border. You’re not. Don’t worry, you’re not going across the border, I promise you.'”
Renteria became suspicious. “I’m over here like, ‘No, this does not seem right. Like at all, dude. This is really suspicious.’ But obviously, I don’t want to raise any alarms because I don’t know these people,” he says.
He took the manila folder they gave him. “Inside the manila folder there’s another manila folder that is sealed closed. And I’m like, ‘OK, this is really weird,'” Renteria says.
After leaving, he opened it. “It’s blank papers. Blank pages. Nothing on it,” he says.
At this point, he had an idea of what the real plan was. “They wanted me to go to [Tijuana, Mexico]. They made sure I had two forms of I.D. so I could cross the border. And they sent me the address. I checked it—it’s some sketchy-ass warehouse. Oh, hell no. I booked it. I booked it out of there.”
He said he tried calling local police, but “they didn’t really care.”
Viewers React to the Human Trafficking Near-Miss
One commenter said, “The warehouse SCREAMS organ harvesting.” A second person agreed, “Organ harvesting and trafficking are a real thing.” A third person said they know this from personal experience. “My cousin got surgery in Mexico to remove weight and extra skin, three months later she went to the doctor and they did some exams on her and realized she was missing a lung,” they wrote.
In a follow-up video, Renteria clarified several details after his first video went viral. “Everything’s been reported to the proper authorities, so don’t worry about that, and they have all the evidence that I had sent to them,” he reveals.
Of the woman, he says, “She was 100% in on it. Because when I called her and I was talking to them before I even went down to San Diego to meet with them, she was like, ‘Bring your two forms of I.D.’ And when I told her I have my I.D.s and whatnot, she’s like, ‘Oh, or a passport.’ So, you know, thinking back now, obviously that was a red flag.”
What Did the Alleged Assailants Look Like?
He described the scammers as appearing to be American citizens. “One of them was a Black dude, big, buff, looked like Scarface, man. He had a freaking scar on his face. The other chick was an older lady with a mask on, and they looked like U.S. citizens,” he says.
The man wore gloves when handing over documents—”no fingerprints, right? Can’t be traced back to him.” He looked at Renteria’s license briefly, and “that license is from Utah. It has my old address on it. It doesn’t even have my new information.”
He says the scammers never got near his car. “I was standing here next to the curb, next to my car. They were on the sidewalk, and we exchanged pleasantries. They were giving their shtick that they give to people, probably the thing that they’ve rehearsed a hundred times.”
He reiterated that papers inside the sealed envelope were completely blank. “Obviously, the police are gonna have them for evidence and whatnot, FBI or whoever the heck wants to take it. I think it was just part of their thing to, like, you know, ‘paperwork you have to deliver,’ and that’s why it was sealed so that you can’t see blank papers.”
How He Foiled the Human Trafficking Attempt
He believes his casual demeanor probably saved him. “I honestly think the only way I got out of there is because I was so inconspicuous about it. I didn’t act like I was suspicious of them or anything.”
The listing was on Craigslist, which perhaps further details the difficulty of the stagnant “low hire, low fire” job market. “Yes, I’ve gotten jobs through Craigslist before, so that’s why I didn’t really think anything of it,” he says.
He adds, “These people looked like they were the nicest people and totally chill. They did not look like they would have been criminals, and they didn’t act like it either. I stared those evil [expletives] right in the face and I didn’t even know. So be careful.”
Craigslist Ads Leading to Human Trafficking
There are stories of human smuggling cases coming from Craigslist ads. One from 2023 details a 42-year-old Houston-area man arrested after responding to an ad, then driving from Houston to Eagle Pass at the border to pick up immigrants.
Another operation is the recruitment of “blind mules,” or unwitting drivers as couriers for cartels, exploiting their lack of nervousness at border crossings. There have been stories of women connecting Craigslist to their trafficking, including one forced into prostitution at age 11 and another trafficked from age 12 to 18, per a Seattle Times exposé.
While there have been no credible stories of Craigslist being connected directly to organ harvesting, the United Nations said that “men make up 82% of the victims of organ trafficking.”
All Hip Hop reached out to Renteria via TikTok.
