By John Ogunsemore
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested 22 Nigerians allegedly involved in a financially motivated sextortion scheme that led to teen suicides in the United States.
The US law enforcement agency disclosed this in a statement published on its website.
According to the FBI, the arrests followed a first-of-its kind global operation involving the bureau and partners from Canada, Australia, Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
The FBI said the operation codenamed ‘Artemis’ was launched in the wake of thousands of reports of teen boys being tricked into sharing sexually explicit photos and threatened with exposure unless they paid up, a scenario blamed for more than 20 teen suicides in the US since 2021.
“As a result of Operation Artemis, FBI investigations led to the arrest of 22 Nigerian subjects, with at least one arrest linked to an American victim who took their own life,” the statement reads in part.
“The coordinated effort started almost two years ago when the FBI began reviewing and associating thousands of disparate reports of teens being targeted and victimised on social media platforms.
“Analysis of victims’ phones and social media accounts revealed heartbreaking narratives of young kids enduring panicked negotiations in bids to maintain their privacy,” the FBI stated.
In the sextortion scheme, minors—usually boys—are befriended online by someone pretending to be a pretty girl and seduced into swapping nude photos.
When the boys comply, they’re suddenly ordered to send money or risk having their intimate photos exposed.
Investigators say that even if the victim pays, the demands usually continue and the threats escalate.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) said there were more than 34,000 victims of sextortion in 2023, and that number increased to more than 54,000 victims last year.
It added that there have been nearly $65 million in financial losses due to this crime over the last two years.
The FBI disclosed that more than 12,600 minors—mostly boys— were targeted in sextortion schemes in the US and abroad from October 2021 to March 2023, based solely on reports received by the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).
“In 2023 alone, the non-profit organisation received 26,718 reports of financial sextortion, up from 10,731 reports in 2022,” the bureau stated.
The statement quoted the Australian Federal Police as stating that there were about 300 new cases in the country every month.
The FBI said some of the suspects were interviewed by Special Agent Matthew Crowley in Nigeria to find out why they chose sextortion over other more lucrative types of financial schemes, like romance fraud or business email compromise scams.
Crowley said, “One subject said, ‘It’s easy money. I can just move on to the next one if I don’t get any traction.'”
She added, “It makes sense why they would go that route because they could target 40 victims in a day working multiple at a time. And maybe of those 40, three pay. But if three paid $200, that’s $600. They might not get $600 working romance fraud for two months.”
An American dad whose 16-year-old son took his own life in 2023 after sextortion threats said he was surprised to see the FBI go all the way to Nigeria to arrest suspects.
He said, “Everything that he (son) loved, everything that he had plans for, every college ambition he had, every girl he liked, every friend he had—those things were all threatened right then.
“Imagine somebody walking into your home in the middle of the night and shooting your son. Well, this person did something even worse than that. He scared him so bad that he shot himself.”