Two East Bay men charged in child porn extortion case
Two East Bay men have been charged in federal court for allegedly cyberstalking and extorting 11to 14yearold children in Northern California and Utah into sending sexually explicit photos and videos on various social media services — some of whom were “harassed and tormented for months,” authorities said.
San Francisco police arrested Delaney Tang of Oakland and Vincenz Sison of Concord on Tuesday. They were both taken to Santa Rita Jail, San Francisco police said.
Tang was charged in a criminal complaint in the Northern District of California in San Francisco with solicitation of child pornography and with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking. Sison, who is named as Tang’s coconspirator, was charged with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking for his alleged role in contacting and harassing the “victims to produce more sexually explicit images and videos,” police said.
Their arrests come months after police said the dean of students at an unnamed San Francisco
high school told police in fall 2019 that “several students” had been extorted on social media for sexually explicit photos and videos. The Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit launched an investigation at that time.
Police said investigators discovered that Tang had created dozens of social media accounts on different sites using fake names and fake profile photos. Police said he would allegedly contact “dozens of underage minors” and start asking for explicit images of the minors. In some cases, police said, Tang would pretend to be a minor in those conversations.
If the minors refused to send images, police said, Tang allegedly managed to locate the victim’s homes or approximate locations using “software or features on some of the social media platforms.” Police said he would “intimidate and threaten to harm the victims if they did not comply with his requests.”
“Tang would also allegedly obtain photos of the victims through their friends or acquaintances, and would make the victims believe that he had more compromising photos of them in order to further extort them,” San Francisco police said.
Police said Tang would also threaten to post the images on social media if they did not supply more, and in “several cases,” police said, he did publish the explicit images, “which were then circulated at the victims’ schools.”
Officials said, “Tang used Sison to contact and harass the victims to produce more sexually explicit images and videos.”
Investigators found eight victims in the Bay Area, Northern California and Utah who are 11 to 14 years old. There are at least 13 additional unidentified victims, police said.
“Investigators continue to work to locate the unidentified victims,” police said.
San Francisco police told The Chronicle they are not releasing the name of the “schools nor the social media platforms at this time as to not compromise the current and potential cases.”
Investigators with San Francisco police, Homeland Security Investigations, the Oakland Police Department and Contra Costa County’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit served search warrants at Tang’s and Sison’s homes on Sept. 25.
Officials found devices with sexually explicit photos and videos of the underage victims, police said. Investigators also found a cell phone that had labeled folders with names of victims, along with their explicit images, police said. Images and videos of at least 13 unidentified victims were also in the folders, police said.
Both defendants made their first federal court appearance on Wednesday before U. S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley. The U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California is prosecuting this case.
Police released the social media usernames allegedly used by the defendants “in order to have any unidentified victims come forward.” 1 thedrunkg1raffe 1 jimmynguyen0950 1 anthonytran800 1 bobbychao5150 1 davidnguyen850 1 kevin_ luong5150 1 brianchao0150 1 delaneyytang
Anyone who believes they are a victim or had any contact with Tang or Sison should call San Francisco Police Department’s Special Victims Unit at 4155585500.