[imagesource:johndemay]

“Someone came to his bedroom at three in the morning and murdered him through Instagram when we were all sleeping at night, and we had zero chance to stop it.”

That’s what John DeMay said in the aftermath of his 17-year-old son, Jordan, taking his own life after being sextorted online.

“My son was smart. He was a good student. He was a great athlete,” John went on to tell Fox News Digital, who reported on the ‘hidden pandemic’ of sextortion that makes far too many young people think that their life is over.

Sextortion, according to the FBI, is a “serious crime” in which perpetrators threaten to expose a victim’s sensitive or private information in exchange for sexually explicit material or money. Jordan was deceived by a Nigerian man posing as a woman on Instagram in March 2022.

In Jordan’s case, the teenager began chatting with someone he thought was a woman on Instagram under the username “dani.robertts.” The account was real but had been hacked and sold to Ogoshi, who used the profile to coerce young men into sending explicit photos of themselves. He allegedly used the photos as leverage for money, according to the FBI.

The girl turned out to be 22-year-old Samuel Ogoshi, one of three suspects from Lagos arrested earlier this month for allegedly hacking Instagram accounts and sexually extorting more than 100 young men online.

“All you’ve to do is cooperate with me and I won’t expose you.”

“I can send this nudes to everyone and also send your nudes Until it goes viral,” Ogoshi wrote in another message to DeMay, a senior football player at Marquette Senior High School, after the 17-year-old sent an explicit photo of himself.

“Just pay me rn [right now],” Ogoshi said over Instagram. “And I won’t expose you.”

Jordan sent $300 (R5 500) after Ogoshi demanded $1 000 (over R18 000), which made the sextorter threaten to expose the teenager’s photo to his family and friends if he did not send more money.

Then, Jordan told Ogoshi that he was going to kill himself:

“Good,” Ogoshi wrote. “Do that fast. Or I’ll make you do it. I swear to God.”

Ogoshi was charged with causing DeMay’s death, but unfortunately, this 17-year-old football player’s tragic fate is not uncommon in America and across the world. A 2022 film called “Sextortion” describes the crime as “the hidden pandemic.”

As Dr Andrew Doan, a neurologist, explains in the film, “For the first time in history, we’re letting strangers interact with our kids in the back of our car, in their bedrooms, in their homes, through video games and social media.”

It is explained that physiologically, teens do not understand who is out there and what they are capable of:

“As a predator, you can actually create an online profile that actually matches the preferences of that child. So, as that child is interacting with that fake account … what they’re experiencing is this super arousing stimuli where the … predator is telling them what they want to hear. They’re telling them about their favorite music, about their favorite food, about their favorite sports and even pick a profile picture that looks like their favorite love interest,” he said.

Doan compared the feeling children experience when talking to strangers online to the high an adult feels after doing drugs. However, teenagers’ brains are not fully developed yet, and they often do not understand the difference between chatting with strangers and friends online.

Another expert featured in the film said sextortion “typically only stops when the victims’ parents get involved or the offender is identified by law enforcement.”

Jordan’s father says said he wishes he could tell Jordan “every single day” if he had “a chance” that threats from the sextortionist were not the end of his life.

He also encourages parents and teenagers all over to learn about the risks of sextortion and have a plan in place if it happens to them or someone they know.

[source:foxnews]