MILWAUKEE — With the world at their fingertips, teenagers are falling victim to a scam taking advantage of their innocence.
It’s a scheme the FBI refers to as sextortion. Essentially, offenders coerce someone into sending explicit photos or videos of themselves and then threaten to leak those to their friends, family and coworkers unless the victim pays them money.
It’s an elevated type of catfishing with even bigger consequences than losing money.
“We’ve got reports of 14 to 20 people who have actually committed suicide because of the pressure,” Special Agent Jason Soule with the FBI said.
Soule says from March of 2021 to October of 2023, there have been 6,100 victims of sextortion across the country, including those 14 to 20 people who died by suicide.
That includes Landed Weigelt, a 17-year-old from Oconto just north of Green Bay. He died by suicide one year ago, on Feb. 7 2023, after falling victim to a financial sexploitation scheme.
In a different case, outside of Wisconsin, Jessica B, who wished to keep her last name private, fell victim as well. She was 14-years-old.
“It was as awful as it might seem,” she said. “I didn’t ever want to do anything to disappoint my mom and family. It was the shame and the embarrassment. The guilt.”
After connecting with a person online, they threatened harm to her mom if she did not send photos to him. Then, the man used that photo to blackmail her for four years.
He was arrested and sentenced to 31 years in prison for extorting Jessica and others. Now, she shares her story in hopes to prevent another person from going through what she went through. Her advice? Say something.
“If I could do it again, I would have come forward much sooner,” Jessica said. “Just tell somebody and let somebody know what’s going on because you don’t’ have to go through it alone.”
It’s a growing problem, Soule says, with cases rising by 20 percent since 2021, with most victims being between 10 and 17 years old. Soule says, they have even seen a case where the victim was 7-years-old.
“That’s what keeps us up at night,” Soule said. “Trying to prevent that here in Milwaukee.”
Tonight Supervisory Special Agent Jason Soule sits down with TMJ4 News to talk about protecting kids from the growing threat of sextortion. Report this crime at 1-800-CALL-FBI. pic.twitter.com/RTp6Z1Squ7
— FBI Milwaukee (@FBIMilwaukee) February 8, 2024
Offenders try to establish a relationship with the child on some sort of interactive site; social media or gaming systems for instance. Soule says the suspects will try and build trust.
“They establish rapport,” Soule said. “Conversation tends to go from being innocent, let me know a little about yourself, to a trust being established. They ask for a little bit more, like a photo, a photo of family, friends, your dog. And as soon as that rust in a relationship is to the point where the offender feels comfortable, that’s when they start making additional requests which are usually explicit in nature.”
Those photos are then used as blackmail to extort more photos or money from the victim. According to Soule, most of these offenders originate from somewhere outside of the United States like the Ivory Coast, Nigeria or the Philippines.
And Soule says, once they have the photos, they will try and instill fear about those closest to you finding out.
“I have this photo of you and now it’s time to pay up,” Soule said. “I’m going to send it to everybody you know. Your family, your friends, classmates, faculty at your school. I am going to ruin you. If you don’t pay me, the best thing that you can do is kill yourself. This is the online communication that we’ve received pretty commonly and it’s pretty alarming.”
Soule encourages parents to be more aware of what their kids are doing online. However, if a child does fall victim to this kind of scam, he says it’s important to remind them, it’s not the end of the world.
“The offenders, as far as we know, do not send these explicit photos to your loved ones, your friends, your family or your colleagues,” Soule said. “We need to get out in front of this. Educate your kids. Kids are going to make mistakes. Just make sure they talk to somebody before they do something drastic.”
Reminding kids that others won’t see these photos is a start, but Soule says parents should get law enforcement involved to hold those doing this accountable.
“If they do find themselves being victimized, it’s important to just cut off all communication,” Soule said. “Tell someone you trust to get that message across that you made a mistake. Report it to law enforcement as well.”
A Michigan boy died by suicide in 2022 after a sextortion scheme. Authorities arrested three Nigerian men and charged them in connection to his death.
Weigelt’s family has established a scholarship fund in his honor. They hope they can share his story to help save another child.
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