Several years ago, Las Vegas local Helena Garcia noticed an alarming trend in the Latino community.
“Every day, someone is ripping off somebody in the community,” Garcia said.
Immigrants who don’t speak English are particularly vulnerable. Scam artists, many of whom speak Spanish, promise mortgage relief, immigration help, or quick loans. Instead, the victims lose their savings, or worse, lose their homes or wind up in deportation proceedings due to bogus immigration advice.
In response, Garcia created an identity for herself as ‘La Protectora’ — a “protector” of vulnerable immigrants and crusader against local scammers. The 52-year old is the daughter of immigrants from Mexico, and is bilingual.
For a short time, she starred as La Protectora in a local, Spanish-language reality TV show.
Cameras followed her as she stuck up for immigrants and confronted the alleged criminals who ripped them off.
With a mane of dark hair and standing 5’10” in heels, Garcia can be intimidating if she wants to be.
In one episode she is shown yelling at the front door of a house: “Whatever, scumbag, piece of garbage, I’m filming you, I’m getting your wife, too! I’m gonna get her fired, scumbag!”
The show aired only briefly on the local affiliate of Azteca America before it was canceled because of a flurry of threatened lawsuits, according to Garcia.
In her other life, Garcia is a real estate agent, and a single mom to two teenagers. But she says her phone rings every day with new calls from immigrants who want La Protectora’s help.
She does it pro bono, as part of her service work with Latinos en Acción, an advocacy group she co-founded. Her controversial brand of citizen justice has become a hobby.
“I’m getting them back justice,” Garcia said of the people she helps. “I’m helping people get back their self esteem and walk around proud.”
Her choice method for dealing with people she believes are crooks? Public humiliation.
“If I can go and confront them, usually I can take care of it or get the people’s money back before they run off,” Garcia said.
This approach has earned Garcia plenty of enemies, and she says, six restraining orders. She claims a judge even banned her from his courtroom. And some of her tactics make local police cringe.
But Las Vegas police investigator Pete Dustin admits that Garcia’s research and assistance helped him arrest two separate defendants who are accused of running elaborate financial schemes.
“I believe that [in giving] credit where credit is due,” Dustin said. “Anybody that wishes to help us, we appreciate immensely.”
Garcia claims she has gotten back over $1 million dollars for people since she began doing this 14 years ago. There’s no way to verify those numbers. But in some immigrant circles, she is practically revered as a super hero.
Fernando Terriquez, a mechanic and Mexican immigrant, has asked for Garcia’s help.
“I’ve seen when someone owes people money,” Terriquez said in Spanish. “She can just go talk to them, and then they hand over the money immediately.
On a recent evening, we joined Garcia on one of her public confrontations. The target this time was a woman who advertises services for things like tax preparation, traffic tickets and various kinds of legal paper work.
Garcia met outside of the woman’s unmarked office with four people who accuse the woman of cheating them. Because no formal charges have been filed, we are withholding the woman’s name.
A 20-year old fast food employee named Erwy Cárdenas is the only one in the group who speaks English.
“I would like my money back, but more important, just justice,” Cárdenas said.
He claims the woman took $300 to fix a problem he had with the IRS, but never did anything.
“I am not the only one who got robbed,” he said. “There are other people got robbed even worse.”
As a group, the four alleged victims who showed up claim the woman took about $3,300 from them without providing the services she promised.
Garcia gathered everyone in a huddle and told them the game plan for confronting the woman.
Then, the group filed inside. The woman was at her desk helping a client. After waiting quietly for several minutes, Garcia made her move.
“When are you going to give these people the money you stole?” Garcia asked the woman in Spanish, in front of the client.
The woman seemed startled. She replied in Spanish that any problems should be addressed in court.
Garcia told the woman, if she doesn’t pay up in the next few days, she will come back with signs and protest on the sidewalk and tell everyone that she is a no-good thief.
“Did you like jail? You just got out of jail?” Garcia asked. Then she added for the benefit of the client listening: “Did you know she just got out of jail in Utah?”
The state district court in St. George, Utah confirmed that the woman was booked into jail there on a charge of receiving stolen property and was released on bond in January. She faces a jury trial this spring for that charge.
We wanted to get her side of the story about the accusations against her, but repeated interview requests were denied. During a visit to her office, the woman did say she is a good person who helps people, and that she did not appreciate Garcia’s visit.
As for Garcia, she says this fight is far from over.
