The FBI is concerned about ‘sextortion’ schemes targeting children, and it’s happening on gaming and video-streaming platforms and social media.
Seventeen-year-old James Woods, a college-bound track star, had just gotten his driver’s license and posed for his senior yearbook photo when his Mother Tamia Woods said an online predator targeted James on Instagram.
In less than 20 hours, James had received 200 messages.
>> Homeland Security agents search Moraine factory
“It ranged anywhere from, I own you to, you need to take your own life,” Tamia Woods said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation calls it financial sextortion.
“Any child can be a victim of this crime,” Abbigail Beccaccio, unit chief for the FBI Child Exploitation Unit, said.
>> Get paid to go to school? New bill unveiled to boost attendance rates in Ohio
Sextortion is when minors are coerced by criminals, often working together overseas, into sharing compromising images of themselves.
“This is a predator that is solely interested in financial gain,” Beccaccio said.
Children as young as nine years old are told to send money or the photos will be posted online.
>> Beavercreek High grad to lead Wilberforce University’s new women’s soccer program
From October 2021 through March 2023 the FBI tracked roughly 12,600 sextortion victims, all of whom were minors.
Since 2021, at least 20 kids have died by suicide, including Woods’ son, James.
“The most horrible phone call, I’ve received that my only child, my, my blessing, my, my heart, my everything, um, is no longer here,” Woods said.
>> Man arrested, accused of shooting coworker inside grocery store
Now the FBI is trying to warn parents and encourage victims to break their silence.
“That’s the intelligence, that’s the information that we have that makes law enforcement have the ability to act,” Beccaccio said.
The Woods family are shattering the stigma by sharing their story.
“You know, he was my only child. And so I have to live through my memories and that’s all I have now memories,” Woods said.
©2024 Cox Media Group
