Weyburn police investigate sextortion email scams

In only the past six weeks, two women contacted Weyburn police with a scary story: Someone was threatening to release sexually explicit videos of them, unless they paid up.

“An unsolicited email showed up,” said Weyburn’s deputy police chief Rod Stafford, who summarized it as follows: “We’ve hacked into your computer. Basically, we know you’ve got these pornographic videos of yourself. Send us money or they’re going to be posted to everyone in your contact list.”

But neither woman had made pornographic videos, according to what they told police. Stafford suspects they were caught up in a scam — but had the good sense to catch on and protect themselves.

“They both indicated that they had not in fact sent any money or given out any information or responded in any fashion to the requests,” said Stafford.

“The intended victim was absolutely 100 per cent positive that type of video was not on their computer.”

He said the two cases are first time the Weyburn Police Service has dealt with that kind of scam. The second episode occurred on July 12. The first one weeks before. Police are unsure whether the two cases are related.

Stafford said there are no suspects, and he thinks it’s unlikely they’ll track anyone down. He thinks they’re likely outside of the country. In other scams — like when people pretend to be from the Canadian Revenue Agency — fraudsters are careful to cover their tracks.

“We basically know from past experience, dealing with these numerous online ones, that they’re spoofed and spooled,” he said. “You can only track the URL or email address so far down and then you run into a brick wall.”

Stafford advises anyone who receives a similar email to contact police right away. There might not be much they can do, but they need the information for statistical purposes. He also said potential victims should have their computers scanned.

“If they are concerned that perhaps someone has truly hacked into their computer, we’re suggesting that they take it to their local computer shop and have it swept for peace of mind, if nothing else.”