Colin
The Sydney Morning Herald can reveal cybercrime detectives traced the plotters to a sprawling Nigerian slum in the latest fatal case of a “hidden pandemic” targeting children across the world.
The high school student took his own life in spring last year.
He was from a loving family, surrounded by mates, a good student and he was stable even in the turbulence of adolescence.
The boy’s death was not just a tragedy: it was inexplicable to those who knew him best.
The Herald has chosen not to identify the teenager’s age, or town, in accordance with the wishes of his family, who are still coming to terms with his loss.
Like every other suicide, the schoolboy’s death triggered a police investigation. Most often the evidence gathered by police investigating suicides is destined for the NSW Coroner’s Court, which aims to give some answer to unexpected deaths.
But when police unlocked the boy’s phone and began scrolling through his recent messages, they realised they were looking at foul play.
The boy had spent his final evening alive, a Friday, in his bedroom messaging a young woman on social media. She had sent a racy photo, he had sent one back, the messages revealed.
“It was all jovial banter at first; then it started to become sexualised. Then all of a sudden, he got sent pictures, and encouraged to send nude pics of himself,” Superintendent Matt Craft told theHerald.
“And that was the gotcha moment.”
The tone of the messages from the ‘girl’ changed instantly and radically to “high-pressure threats and demands”, Craft said.
The scammers told the teenager if he didn’t pay $500 in online gift cards, they would distribute his naked photos to his family and school friends.
“The messages are horrific. They’re aggressive and put a lot of pressure on the boy to pay the money,” Craft said.
Hours later, the boy killed himself.
The NSW Police officers late last year referred their case to the State Crime Command’s cybercrime squad, which has 70 specialised staff and electronic labs, hoping to find the culprits.
Cybercrime detectives quickly concluded the scammers had done their homework on their target, tracking down his friends and family on social media.
They wanted the boy to believe they would make good on their threats and he believed them enough to take his own life.
The case was strikingly similar to the deaths of other schoolboys, Canadians Robin Janjua and William Doiron, and American Jordan Demay, who were all allegedly hounded to suicide by sextortion plots run by west African crime gangs.
Doiron, a 16-year-old rising hockey star, killed himself after the scammers extracted explicit photographs from him and posted them on Instagram in October 2022.
“They convince you that your life is over if you don’t pay,” his mother told Canada’s public broadcaster.
Janjua took his own life in February 2022. Demay died one month later.
The US National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children in 2022 recorded dramatic spikes in sextortion, which it called a “hidden pandemic”.
But as in those cases, the scammers targeting the NSW teenager had left behind digital footprints that cybercrime detectives traced to Nigeria.
For detectives, it was a bittersweet breakthrough; after weeks of hitting brick walls, they had found the trail, but it led far from the jurisdiction of NSW.
There is one room in Sydney, however, where cybercrime detectives from across Australia come together and plug into the Australian Federal Police and Australia’s extensive contacts with global law enforcement agencies, the Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre (JPC3).
The JPC3, using its connections with the FBI and the AFP’s South African outpost, narrowed the scammer’s online trail down to an immense sprawl of slums in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, home to 25 million people.
Australia has no extradition treaty with Nigeria, but the men will be prosecuted under local laws.
AFP Commander Helen Schneider said the arrests showed how law enforcement agencies needed to work together to combat “borderless crime” like that carried out by online fraud syndicates.
“The sextortion of children is a borderless crime, as these arrests show,” Schneider said.
“The partnerships between law enforcement here in Australia and around the world are vital as we work together to protect children online.”
Evidence gathered so far suggests the Nigerian scammers were using a “scattergun” approach, targeting numerous children for relatively small amounts of money.
“From the information found on their phones, it was clear that they are involved in sextortion offending, not only with [the NSW boy], but also more broadly, with other victims,” Craft said.
The men will not be charged with causing the NSW teenager’s death, just for the sextortion attempt, but they are likely to face charges related to their other targets.
They have not been convicted and have not yet entered pleas.
The Nigerian prison system is notably harsh, police said, but they said justice was the best they could offer to the boy’s grieving family.
“It’s all about establishing the truth,” Craft said. “But they were pleased someone had been arrested.”
Craft said the family had done the right thing by speaking with their son about online safety. They struggle wondering what else they could have done before he was targeted.
“They have questions about why their son did it; why didn’t he come and talk to them? They even had that discussion with him about sextortion,” Craft said.
“We were able to give the family some reassurance about the fact that they weren’t specifically targeting their son.”
NSW Police have recorded a huge spike in sextortion cases, an almost 400 per cent increase in 18 months, partly because schools, parents and other agencies have been trying to educate teenagers that they are victims of crime.
Craft urged parents to have the “awkward conversations”, repeatedly if needed, with their children.
Sextortion ‘playbook’
Cybercrime police want parents to understand “the playbook” used in sextortion.
It begins with an unsolicited friend request from a stranger on social media and friendly banter.
It quickly escalates to sexualised questions to test a target’s interest and sexual images are sent from the fake profile.
There may be signs English is a second language, and excuses about why the scammer’s own webcam or microphone doesn’t work for real-time calls.
They pressure the target to send nude images and chat on multiple social media apps, allowing the scammer to find the target’s friends and family.
Once the target sends an intimate image, the scammers immediately demand money and start threatening to share the intimate image and expose the target.
“Parents need to be aware of sextortion. They need to have those conversations because what’s coming to their children, into their bedrooms, will come through an electronic device,” Craft said.
“Teenagers need to tell an adult what’s going on. You need to report it. You need to understand you’re a victim of a crime.”
Lifeline: 13 11 14 ( lifeline.org.au), the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467 and suicidecallbackservice.org.au) and beyondblue (1300 22 4636 and beyondblue.org.au)
