Sextortion / Online Enticement / Romance Scams

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Sept. 6, 2024 -  The Justice Department today announced that Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, both of Lagos, Nigeria, were each sentenced to 210 months in prison and five years of supervised release for conspiracy to sexually exploit minors. On March 25, 2022, 17-year-old high school student, Jordan DeMay, of Marquette, Michigan, died as a result of this sextortion scheme, which targeted over 100 other victims. 

Sept 3, 2024 - An old but persistent email scam known as “sextortion” has a new personalized touch: The missives, which claim that malware has captured webcam footage of recipients pleasuring themselves, now include a photo of the target’s home in a bid to make threats about publishing the videos more frightening and convincing.

Sept 2, 2024 -   BIRMINGHAM, AL (WBMA) — A national safety group reporting a shift in victims of sextortion. Young males are now the most frequent target and Instagram the most popular platform for connecting with children. 

August 23, 2024 -  LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- A 21-year-old Chilean man suspected of meeting a 14- year-old girl through an online gaming application, grooming, and sexually exploiting her before planning to meet with her in the Glendora area was taken into custody, police said Wednesday. 

They revel in lives of luxury with designer clothes, flash cars and expensive jewelry.

Flashing piles of cash and showing off Mercedes motors and £1000 Balenciaga trainers, these are the men proud to call themselves ‘Yahoo Boys’ - scammers who have conned thousands of young Brits through sextortion.  Showing off the spoils of their crimes while working together in so-called 'Hustle Kingdoms' - upmarket hotel rooms - the tricksters have no shame.

But this is a criminal network with blood on its hands.

 MARQUETTE, Mich. (WJMN) — Families of sextortion victims shared their stories alongside a national organization for a Day of Action on Tuesday, criticizing Meta for their lagging reporting times amid surging cases. 

 Seventeen-year-old Jordan DeMay was a beloved high school student from Michigan, who took his own life in 2022 — just hours after he was the target of a crime known as "sextortion."

Cybercriminals posed as an attractive girl in the United States who was interested in him. Then they threatened to release explicit photographs of him, unless he paid them. He sent $300, but they demanded more.

  TOKYO -- Sextortion cases involving threats to distribute sexual images or videos over social media, often along with demands for money or items, are on the rise in Japan, and the Mainichi Shimbun spoke with investigative sources and others to hear more about how these incidents unfold. 

   MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN — U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan Mark Totten today announced that Samuel Ogoshi, 22, and Samson Ogoshi, 20, of Lagos, Nigeria, each pleaded guilty to conspiring to sexually exploit teenage boys in the Western District of Michigan and across the United States.  The offense of conspiracy to sexually exploit minors requires a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison; the maximum possible penalty is 30 years. 

 A predator who posed as a famous teenage YouTuber to blackmail hundreds of girls into performing sex acts on camera has been jailed in “one of the worst sextortion cases” in history. 

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No conversation may be as important as the one about the dangers of online predators and your child’s pictures and information ending up in the wrong hands.
The FBI wants parents to know what apps their kids are using and who they are talking to. “These kids will either think they know who the subject is or it’s a friend of theirs or not, and they’ll end up enticing them to send these photos to them,” said Assistant Special Agent in Charge David Collins.  

Five people from the United States have been arrested related to a money laundering conspiracy. Authorities say the investigation is separate but related to the sextortion death of Marquette teenager, Jordan DeMay.

 

An adult sexual predator, posing as a teenager, sought out young boys from 10 to 13 years old to entice them to play various online gaming platforms and then sexually exploited them, police in Scottsdale say — part of a growing trend that authorities contend should put parents on alert.

 

 Sextortion has affected thousands of young people across the country including children in East Tennessee.  It causes embarrassment, anxiety, desperation and in the most severe cases—suicide. 

"It is a threat. In terms of child exploitation and child sexual abuse, those threats have been around since the beginning of mankind. The threats that we are seeing now grow because there are more people online than have ever been online," FBI Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Jordan Hadfield said. 

A whopping one in five preteens aged 9-12 have had an online sexual interaction with someone they believed to be an adult, according to a report from anti-human trafficking organization Thorn. 

If you’re reading this, odds are you’ve sent a nude or suggestive photo to someone at some point in your life—and you wouldn’t be alone. A third of Americans have shared a nude photo, an intimacy expert and certified sexologist told the New York Post. In fact, they send 1.8 million nudes per day (20 per second), according to a survey from Bad Girls Bible. That gives scammers a lot of people they can easily blackmail, whether they actually have your nudes or not. 

Someone who was a sextortionist blackmailer shares their story and advice on Reddit.

In 2017, Thorn launched a sextortion research survey. The number of responses from individuals who have experienced sextortion was shocking. We gained valuable insight about this real-life harm from over 1,600 victims. Reading first-hand accounts of what sextortion victims experience may be difficult, but it’s how we’ll shed light on this crime that hides in DMs and private online spaces.  

If someone threatens to share a nude image or video of you, that’s a type of image-based abuse (or ‘revenge porn’) and it’s illegal. If they are trying to blackmail you, don't pay them. You can report image-based abuse and get help. 

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has removed roughly 63,000 accounts and is banning all future content from a notorious online cybercriminal ring that's targeted U.S. adults in financial sextortion scams. 

Financial sextortion is a horrific crime that can have devastating consequences. Our teams have deep experience in fighting this crime and work closely with experts to recognize the tactics scammers use, understand how they evolve and develop effective ways to help stop them.  

Just hours before his untimely death, the life of 16-year-old Murray Dowey from Scotland seemed ordinary–a night of family bonding over television and plans for an upcoming holiday with friends. Little did his parents know that the following morning would shatter their world, as Murray became another casualty of the sextortion epidemic sweeping across the globe. 

Snapchat has announced a bunch of new features to protect teens from sextortion.

This includes improvement to its blocking function, better control over location settings, and safety pop-ups that encourage teens to be cautious of people they meet on the app. Users will also be encouraged to update their apps at the earliest.

 ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - The FBI defines sextortion as a crime involving someone threatening to distribute another person’s private and sensitive material.

According to the federal agency, sextortion cases are up 700% since 2021. The average victim is between 10 and 17 years old but can be as young as seven years old, according to investigators. More boys fall victim.

Authorities are warning parents about an online scam that is growing around the U.S., including here in the Coachella Valley. It's called 'Sextortion', or 'Sexploitation', and it's a difficult concept to grasp, but the consequences can be devastating. It's a scheme that Detective Sergent Miguel Torres with the Palm Springs Police Department, is seeing much more of. 

Not long ago, making prank calls was the worst trouble a group of teens could get into with a telephone.

But today, predators use phones to stalk and blackmail teens on social media and dating apps. Sextortion — the act of threatening to share nude or explicit images — is more common than you may think, and cases affecting young children, teens and adults have increased exponentially in the past two years. In fact, Homeland Security Investigations received over 3,000 sextortion tips in fiscal year 2022.

 The FBI wants to warn parents, educators, caregivers, and children about sextortion, a crime that involves the solicitation and enticement of a minor to engage in sexual acts that are photographed or filmed and provided to an offender they have met online. 

President Joe Biden signed into law the bipartisan Revising Existing Procedures on Reporting via Technology (REPORT) Act, authored by U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.).

This legislation will require Big Tech companies such as Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram to report crimes against children involving sex trafficking, grooming, or the enticement of children for sexual acts to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) CyberTipline. Currently, criminal law only requires companies to report child sexual abuse materials (CSAM).

 In the current Congressional session (2023-2024), we have seen many bills introduced that relate to the online sexual exploitation and abuse of children (OSEAC) or to child safety more broadly. One of these important pieces of legislation, the Revising Existing Procedures On Reporting via Technology Act (or the REPORT Act), recently passed out of the House of Representatives and was subsequently signed into law by President Biden on May 7, 2024. 

Romance scammers tell all sorts of lies to steal your heart and money, and reports to the FTC show those lies are working. Last year’s romance scam numbers looked a lot like 2021 all over again, and it’s not a pretty picture. In 2022, nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam, and reported losses hit a staggering $1.3 billion.[1] The median reported loss: $4,400.[2] 

 Millions of people use online dating apps or social networking sites to meet someone. But instead of finding romance, many find a scammer trying to trick them into sending money. Read about the stories romance scammers make up and learn the number one way to avoid a romance scam. 

In romance scams, a criminal uses a fake online identity to gain a victim's affection and trust. The scammer then uses the illusion of a romantic or close relationship to manipulate and/or steal from the victim. 

A romance scam is a form of confidence scheme whereby a scammer gains the trust of a victim by developing a romantic relationship. This relationship usually begins through contact on social media or dating applications, but can also occur on online job sites. Victims can be both men and women. Most of these scams are perpetrated by individuals overseas – primarily Nigeria. 

When you have a new romance there’s so much to talk about. But if your new sweetheart only wants to talk about your money and how you should invest it, stop talking. They might be a romance scammer, like those who stole more than $1 billion from people last year. How do the scams start, and what can you do to avoid one? 

 Sextortion, also known as webcam blackmail, is when intimate images and videos are recorded and used for financial exploitation and coercion. It is a very common crime that we see a lot of on the helpline. If you are reading this, it is likely that this may have happened to you or someone you know. We understand this can be hugely distressing, and we hope this article can explain a little more about why you should stop all contact with the blackmailer, block their account, and report them to the platform.  

A Folsom man who was sexually blackmailing teenagers from around the country will spend nearly the rest of his life in prison.

Matthew Goyder, 41, was sentenced last week inside the Sacramento federal courthouse. Detectives say Goyder would pose as a 15-year-old boy and then would threaten his victims into sending him explicit photos.

 Washington — James Woods, a 17-year-old college-bound track star, had just gotten his driver's license and posed for his senior yearbook photo when an online predator targeted him on Instagram. 

James received 200 messages in less than 20 hours, according to his mother, Tamia Woods.   

"It ranged anywhere from 'I own you,' to 'you need to take your own life,'" Woods told CBS News. 

The FBI calls what happened to James financial sextortion. 

 Predators can weaponize social media platforms against vulnerable youth. 

  Instagram is set to use blurring tools to fight “sextortion.”

The firm will deploy the software within weeks after a spate of blackmail cases involving intimate pictures sent online and “revenge porn.”

It includes “nudity protection,” which blurs naked images in direct messages and will be turned on by default for users under 18 years old.

A father is turning the loss of his son into a personal mission.

A sextortion scam targeted his entire family and South Carolina state Rep. Brandon Guffey says the company that runs sites like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp could have done more to prevent his son Gavin’s death.

 AURORA, Mo. (KY3) - A tragic story of a young man who took his own life in Aurora. It’s the story of 16-year-old Evan Boettler. His family hopes you can learn from it. 

 The U.S. is seeing a rise in financial sextortion cases targeting thousands of minors and officials say teenage boys are being targeted specifically. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2022 says it received more than 10,000 tips of financial sextortion of minors. By the end of July 2023, the agency says the number of reports jumped to nearly 13,000. John Shehan, senior vice president of the exploited children division and international engagement at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, joined CBS News to discuss the issue. 

 Sextortion is a form of image-based sexual abuse that is growing nationwide. During COVID-19, men experienced higher rates of sextortion than women. Sextortion has negative psychological, physical, and social consequences for victims.

  CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The FBI wants parents, caregivers and teenagers to be aware sextortion attempts, which is when adults pose as teens to try and entice victims into being sexually exploited for money, typically spike during breaks from school.  

   When our lives are intricately intertwined with technology, we must be vigilant against the myriad of online threats that lurk in the shadows. One such threat is “sextortion:” It’s a type of phishing attack that harasses victims with the threat that their devices have been taken over, and that a hacker has recorded video footage of their victims’ personal lives.