We all know the story: Boy meets girl online, girl sends nudes, boy sends nudes back, girl turns out to be a guy who threatens to post nudes online unless boy pays a large sum of money.

This is the basic storyline for sexploitation scams.

These scams, which usually take place via social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp, are not new to South Africa. They are, however, in the spotlight again after a Jozi businessman paid over R170 000 to keep dodgy pics of himself off of the internet.

Here’s Business Tech:

According to a report in the Sunday Times, the man requested the help of security specialist Mike Bolhuis [below right] – after which the extortion stopped.

…Bolhuis told talk radio 702 on Monday that he has seen a spate of ‘sextortion’ incidents, with limited dedicated police resources dealing with as mnay as 1,000 cases daily. He told the Sunday Times that he has investigated as many as 150 cases in the past month alone.

“We suspect that these sextortion rings are operating in the big cities like Durban, Cape Town, and Johannesburg,” he said.

“They scour the market and see what is the latest trend that would work. The one that has always been a good thing is sexual communication.”

Bolhuis told 702 that privacy will soon be as expensive a commodity as water, due to the increasing sophistication of cyber criminals.

Apparently, it’s also as scarce as water in Cape Town.

“The public is sometimes under the impression that your information is private on WhatsApp. Let me warn the public today, there is no such thing as privacy.”

“The most expensive thing in the future will be your privacy and not water, you can hack everything,” Bolhuis said.

Some handy tips if you insist on sending nudes to strangers online:

1. Don’t send nudes online.
2. If you’re ignoring tip one, never include your face. Ever.
3. And here’s the thing boys – it’s very rare that a woman will actually request a dick pic, so that should be the first clue that you’re being scammed.

Or you could take social media law expert Emma Sadleir’s word for it. She spoke with Times LIVE:

[She] said her Digital Law Company received an average of five calls a day, mainly from “hysterical” white middle-aged men.

“The youngest was a 12-year-old boy and the oldest was a 68-year-old man. In the case of the boy, he shared pictures of his penis with a woman he met on a messaging application called Kick.

“The woman demanded $500 [R6,900] via MoneyGram from the boy. He freaked out and told his parents about it. His father then approached me for advice.”

A young Sandton business executive coughed up R38,000 before turning to Sadleir [above].

“He shared nudes of himself with a man on Grindr.”

Emma was very blunt with her warning:

Sadleir said the warning sign for middle-aged men should be if a beautiful girl expresses interest in them.

Sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind.

[sources:businesstech&timeslive]