‘Foolishness has a price. Do you want to tell your mother or will I?’
Ronan, 17, thought he was messaging a potential girlfriend who’d asked him to share intimate photos. Disastrously, he agreed and suddenly the blackmail threats began. Now he’s dead — one of more and more victims of a cruel new crime
advice is often to ignore the threats — and do nothing.
‘Sometimes the online extortionists are operating on such an industrial scale that they are putting out demands for money by the thousand . . . they are hoping that just a handful of victims will bite, and what they get from them will make it worth their while.’
Professor Roberta O’Malley of the University of Southern Florida is one of the world’s leading experts on this sordid crime.
‘It may start with a demand for £100, but it soon creeps up,’ she says. ‘We’ve also noticed among younger victims that there is an element of “bidding down”. If a teenager doesn’t have £1,000, the perpetrator might ask for £500 and they pay up. Then it starts again.’
Prof O’Malley is under no illusions about what motivates some of the victims. ‘They’re engaging in risky behaviour; they’re meeting other risky people,’ she says. ‘And these men are pleased they are finally getting reached out to by women on dating apps.
‘The criminals know that and that’s why these communications can get so explicit so quickly. The victims don’t know they’re being blackmailed till it’s too late.’
Prof O’Malley believes social media platforms should do much more to warn users about the risk.
‘A lot of the platforms, such as Tinder, Grindr, Instagram and Snapchat are just ignoring it. The dating apps are probably the worst — they are already letting ads from sex workers appear without any sanction. No wonder they don’t seem interested in combating the blackmailers. Social media platforms know sextortion is going on, but unless someone complains to them about being a victim, they won’t do anything.’
Some cases of extortion have had tragic consequences. In 2013, 17year- old Danny Perry from
Dunfermline threw himself to his death from the Forth Road Bridge. He had been duped into an explicit Skype chat with what he thought was a young woman: two Filipino men were later arrested in Manila for blackmailing him, but they have not been prosecuted.
His mother, Nicola Perry, recalled at the time: ‘It was a female he was talking to. I believe they were talking for a few months and he believed he was talking to this American girl from Illinois.’
Another victim, John, fell prey to a similar crime. He told the BBC what happened to him. ‘I went on Facebook and she said: “Add me on Skype.” So I did and she then said: “Let’s do webcam and I’ll get naked for you.” ’
Like so many others he allowed himself to be cajoled into appearing on video.
‘She said she’d tell my family and friends, tell my daughter, tell my wife — and ruin your life, ruin your family. I was very frightened — just the thought of them seeing that was really terrifying.
‘I feel like telling everyone about it . . . it happens to a lot of people . . . Just the thought of your close family and friends seeing that video, it terrifies you.’
Ronan Hughes, from Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, also took his own life in 2015 after he was targeted on Facebook by a gang based in Romania.
They threatened to release pictures to his family unless he sent them £3,400 in Bitcoins.
He told them, just before his death: ‘I’m only 17, please, I’m begging you — don’t.’
The perpetrator replied: ‘That’s not my problem. Foolishness has a price. And you’ll pay.
‘Do you want to tell your mother or will I? You have 48 hours from now. Time is running out!’
Ronan was found dead in a field near his home. The extortionists were eventually caught in Romania and jailed for four years.
The Mail approached Meta, which also owns Instagram. Meta did not wish to comment on this case, but a spokesperson said that the company supports the use of
‘ The thought of my family seeing that video is terrifying’
StopNCII.org, a tool that helps end the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.
‘ We’ve invested heavily in strengthening our technology to keep fake accounts off Facebook and Instagram,’ they added.
Although the authorities insist they are doing their best to combat sextortion, these gangs are operating outside Britain, mainly in the Philippines but also in Romania, Morocco and the Ivory Coast.
Any investigation abroad requires massive resources. And the problem is that the public often blames the victims themselves for falling to the perpetrators.
This can risk looking like a case of clear double standards. When an unwitting person, perhaps an older or more vulnerable individual, falls victim to financial scammers and loses their money, we feel sympathy for them.
But when a similarly unwitting person shares intimate pictures with someone whom they believe to be a willing partner, and is then blackmailed for them, often society takes the view that it’s their own stupid fault.
And whether we like it or not, millions of people — and probably a majority of younger people — do send intimate pictures of themselves to their partners.
Dr Calli Tzani, an investigative psychologist at Huddersfield University, told the Mail: ‘ Of course, it’s common sense not to send intimate pictures to anyone. But sextortion has become such a problem that unless we do something about it, we may find more lives ruined, more suicides, more families devastated.
‘Is it right that so many innocent people should suffer from a single, simple mistake?’
Carl’S account came via a third party involved in helping victims. His name was changed to protect his identity. Stop.NCII.org can be downloaded free of charge.