Two Busted in Sextortion Scam That Pushed Teen to Suicide, Police Say
Two men in Nigeria have been arrested in connection with a sextortion scam that pushed a teenage boy in Australia to suicide, police said.
The pair of suspects were found last month in a slum in Lagos five months after the adolescent took his own life, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. Police say they realized the boy had been the victim of a criminal extortion plot when they unlocked his phone and viewed the messages he’d sent and received in the hours before his death.
The boy, who has not been named, believed he was messaging a young woman on social media. “It was all jovial banter at first; then it started to become sexualised,” New South Wales Police’s Superintendent Matt Craft told the Herald. “Then all of a sudden, he got sent pictures, and encouraged to send nude pics of himself.”