SYDNEY (AFP) – Two men have been arrested in Nigeria after allegedly trying to extort an Australian teenager by threatening to release compromising photos of him online, Australian police said Monday.
Detectives said the boy had killed himself after being threatened by the suspects in the alleged “sextortion” scam.
The men, who had been talking with the teenager online, said they would release “personal photos of the boy” if he did not pay them AUD500 (USD330), Australian police said.
Sextortion is a rising form of cybercrime in which a scammer, often posing as an online love interest, convinces an unwitting victim to send them sexual images.
They then threaten to release the images if the victim does not pay up.
Working with authorities in South Africa and Nigeria, police said they had tracked the two men to “a slum in Nigeria”.
Under Nigerian law, local authorities “have the power to prosecute for Australian-based offences”, they added.
“The sextortion of children is a borderless crime, as these arrests show,” said Australian Federal Police commander Helen Schneider.
