FBI arrests Penn Hills man in ‘sextortion’ case

The FBI arrested a Penn Hills man on Thursday on charges related to extorting teenage girls in multiple states into sending him nude and sexually explicit images and videos through a Snapchat phishing scheme.

Kaung Myat Kyaw, who lives on Jefferson Road, was taken into custody following an investigation by police and agents in Pittsburgh, Virginia, Buffalo, N.Y., and elsewhere.

Mr. Kyaw is accused of coercion and enticement of minors from September 2020 through November 2021 as part of an ongoing investigation.

He appeared by video in federal court on Friday, during which a Burmese interpreter translated the proceedings for him as he listened from the Allegheny County Jail.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn Bloch asked for detention, saying Mr. Kyaw is a flight risk and a danger to the community.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Maureen Kelly set a detention hearing for Dec. 10.

Mr. Kyaw will remain locked up until then.

The case in Pittsburgh began in August when agents here learned their counterparts in Fairfax County, Va., and Buffalo were investigating the social media usernames “savnxh,” “jokerxkris” and others involved in the “sextortion of minor victims throughout the United States and overseas,” according to an FBI affidavit.

In the Virginia case, county police there said a 16-year-old girl reported in September 2020 being extorted for sex images stored on her phone.

She said she communicated with “savnxh” on Snapchat but blocked the account. She was then contacted by “jokerxkris,” who threatened to distribute sexually explicit images stored on her phone to her social media contacts if she didn’t send more images to him.

He also demanded that she record herself masturbating and send those videos to him. She ended up sending 20 videos, according to the affidavit.

In April of this year, according to the FBI and sheriff’s deputies in Rochester, N.Y., a 15-year-old girl reported that an unknown person gained access to her Snapchat account through a phishing scheme in an attempt to extort her.

The girl told agents that in March she received a text saying that someone had accessed her account. She followed the reset instructions provided and unknowingly sent her username and password.

She then got a “friend request” text from “krxs.com,” who said he had hacked her account and accessed nude images she had kept in a file she called “My Eyes Only.”

Krxs.com threatened her, saying, “I hacked your nudes. If you block me, I will send them to everyone even your friends from school. I will post them on the internet along with you social infos. If you do not want that to happen, you have to make a deal with me!”

He also said he enjoyed “being in control” and likened himself to Batman’s enemy, Joker.

“U know the joker, im a psychopath like him but a perverted one,” he wrote.

Before the girl sent any photos, her mother found out what was happening and contacted the local sheriff’s office.

The Pittsburgh FBI executed a search warrant on Thursday and arrested Mr. Kyaw, after which he told agents that he had learned to hack Snapchat from an “unknown co-conspirator” in an online forum, agents said. He said he agreed to provide the conspirator with images of nude girls. He explained that he would send a fake Snapchat message to a girl saying there was suspicious activity on her account.

To reset the account, she had to provide her passcode, according to the affidavit.

Mr. Kyaw then got into her account and in some cases was able to access nude images and videos the girls had on their phones.

He told the agents that he provided those images to the conspirator, knowing the conspirator would use them to extort more girls into sending images or videos of themselves in sex acts.

In exchange, Mr. Kyaw said, the conspirator would send him any new images that he had received.

Mr. Kyaw said he and the other person would receive videos from girls every day, sometimes multiple times a day, the FBI said.

“Kyaw also stated that he would successfully access a new victim Snapchat account once a week, sometimes after attempting to access multiple accounts,” the affidavit states.

A review of his iCloud account showed another victim, a 16-year-old from Collier, the FBI said, who had received text messages from Mr. Kyaw on May 22.

A review of Mr. Kyaw’s phone showed that he had stored a script purportedly from the “Snapchat Support Team” informing users that someone gained access to their account and requesting a passcode for reset.

The Collier girl had received a text with that script.

Mr. Kyaw faces a mandatory minimum 10 years in federal prison if convicted.