U.S. investigators have seen an explosion in sextortion complaints from victims, leading the FBI to ramp up a campaign to warn parents from coast to coast.
Ryan Last received a message on a school night in February from someone he believed to be a girl."Somebody reached out to him pretending to be a girl, and they started a conversation," his mother, Pauline Stuart, told CNN, fighting back tears as she described what happened to her son days after she and Ryan had finished visiting several colleges he was considering attending after graduating high school.
She had said goodnight to Ryan at 10 p.m., and described him as her usually happy son. By 2 a.m., he had been scammed, and taken his life. Ryan left behind a suicide note describing how embarrassed he was for himself and the family. The bureau says there were over 18,000 sextortion-related complaints in 2021, with losses in excess of $13 million. The FBI says the use of child pornography by criminals to lure suspects also constitutes a serious crime."To be a criminal that specifically targets children -- it's one of the more deeper violations of trust I think in society," says FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dan Costin, who leads a team of investigators working to counter crimes against children.
"The embarrassment piece of this is probably one of the bigger hurdles that the victims have to overcome," said Costin. "It can be a lot, especially in that moment." "Teen brains are still developing," said Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent medicine at Mass General in Boston. "So when something catastrophic happens, like a personal picture is released to people online, it's hard for them to look past that moment and understand that in the big scheme of things they'll be able to get through this.