St. Louis, MO (KMOX) - More warnings from the St. Louis FBI office about schemes that trap teen victims into explicit online behavior. "Any time a teenager has access to the internet and can be contacted by people from the outside world, they're at risk," says FBI St Louis Acting Special Agent in Charge Chris Crocker.
Predators primarily from West Africa and Southeast Asia are targeting teen boys here, tricking them with fake online profiles of females, then threatening to expose explicit images they capture unless the victims pay up. It's called sextortion. "Sometimes that victims does pay that fee, and when they do, they just ask for more and more money."
Crocker says victims are devastated by the crime. Some boys have even taken their own lives. He says it's important to stress to kids who may be victims, that they won't be in trouble for what a predator tricked them into doing.
"What I would recommend to parents is that they talk to their kids regularly about what they're doing online. And if they're getting sort of vague, evasive answers they should ask more probing questions," suggest Crocker. "If they're getting specific details then the kid is probably being honest, but if they're just not willing to share a lot of detail they're probably hiding something and it might be worth digging a little deeper to see if there's some contact going on that you'd like to stop."
Resources:
www.FBI.gov has a page dedicated to the topic of sextortion
To contact the FBI, dial 1-800-CALL-FBI or use tips.fbi.gov to provide information online
Click HERE to access an interactive video from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on the warning signs and risks of sextortion
NCMEC also provides guidance on how to remove nude photos online that were taken before a person was 18 years old through Take it Down
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