Published: 2016 December 02 17:13:04 (10388 Views)

Four men in the UK have killed themselves after being targeted in a new and fast-growing sex blackmail scam.

Victims are being lured into exposing themselves or committing sex acts online by pretty young women after accepting their friendship requests on social networking sites.

They then face payment demands of hundreds of pounds - or threats that recordings of their behaviour will be sent to family and friends whose contact details they have unwittingly given access to.

Martin Hewitt, of the National Police Chiefs' Council, said: "We started to see it emerging about 18 months ago.

"Last year we had about 300 offences recorded in the UK and we're now this year over 900, and I suspect there's a significant number that don't get reported because the crime is preying on people's embarrassment and their humiliation of being caught out doing something like this."



Schoolboy Ronan Hughes, 17, was tricked into sending intimate photographs of himself, then faced a demand for £3,000 to avoid exposure.

He killed himself even though he had revealed the threat to his parents and police in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

Daniel Perry, from Dunfermline, also 17, took his own life after threats to reveal his compromising online conversations.

Police would not reveal details of the other two suicides, but said they were both within the past year and added there could be more.

Organised crime groups in the Philippines, Morocco and Ivory Coast were discovered running many of the sextortion scams, some using British girls.

Most of the UK victims are men aged 18-24, the eldest was 82 and the youngest 14. Some women have also been targeted.



Source - Sky News

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