The Associated Press
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) -- Police are looking for a Hispanic woman who claims to be a faith healer in hopes of ending a string of scams in southern Oregon that involved phony “cures” such as cracking an egg over a woman’s head.
The woman and her accomplices also asked to “cleanse” money of demons, accepting thousands of dollars in cash from migrant workers that was never returned.
“It was obviously a well-planned con,” police Lt. Mike Moran said Monday. “It looks like they worked people for several days, and we think they worked a lot of people.
“Preying upon someone’s desire to be cured of an affliction is pretty reprehensible.”
In one example, a 35-year-old Hispanic man plagued by alcoholism saw a small advertisement near his west Medford home in October that gave him faith he could dispel the demon of his addiction.
“Seqora Healer,” the card said in Spanish. “She will help you resolve any type of problem regardless of how difficult.”
The man met several times with Seqora Maria, a hefty woman with freckles and facial hair who charged him $300. Then Seqora Maria coaxed the man out of another $4,700 to be “cleansed” in a church ritual and to be returned to him at 8 p.m. Sunday at her west Medford apartment.
When the man went to her apartment Sunday, he found it vacant, as did other people who police say likely represent just some of the area’s Hispanic community who were scammed out of large sums of cash.
Police were called to a disturbance outside the apartment shortly before 10 p.m. They discovered 10 angry people thought to be victims of Seqora Maria and her sidekick, a well-dressed Hispanic man who went by the name Juan.
Throughout October, they placed the 3-by-5 card advertisements on cars and businesses frequented by Hispanics, Moran said. The card claims to help in matters of love, work, muscular pains, insomnia and sexual impotence.
The Hispanic community is vulnerable to such scams because a belief in spiritual intervention is part of Hispanic culture, local Hispanic activist Milo Salgado said.
“They’re easy to prey on because of their faith,” said Salgado, a board member of Centro Hispano of Southern Oregon, which works as a community liaison for Spanish-speaking people.
“Spiritually, people always have great hope that God will do something for them, that things will get better,” Salgado said.
Salgado said the annual pear harvest is the most common time for scams because there is more money circulating in the community. Also, many Hispanics do not trust banks, so “Latinos always have some cash somewhere,” he said.