Mark and Ros Dowey, parents of a British teenager who took his own life after falling victim to sextortion, have appealed to perpetrators to stop the act.
Murray, their 16-year-old son, committed suicide after he was tricked by scammers from Nigeria who posed as a girl, into sending compromising pictures of himself.
Authorities in Nigeria were involved in the investigation but Ros, his mother, said the process was “painfully slow”.
Mark told the BBC his son was “a really lovely kid” and that he and his wife had no idea anything was wrong.
“He went up to his room, and he was absolutely fine. And you know, we found him dead the next morning,” he said.
Ros added: “We had no chance to intervene, to notice there was something wrong and try and help and fix it.”
In a video message, the Doweys described the moments leading up to their son’s demise as a “cruel” crime by the perpetrators.
“You’re abusing children. You’ve ended Murray’s life,” they said.
“How would they feel if it was their child or their little brother or their friend? I mean, it’s so cruel, and this is children, and it’s abuse.
“You’re terrorising people, children, for some money, and I don’t think in any society that is in any way acceptable.”
‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST’
A sextortion scammer in Lagos told BBC News Investigations that the crime is like an “industry”.
“I know that it’s bad, but I just call it survival of the fittest,” the scammer said on condition of anonymity.
“It depends on the fish you catch. You might throw the hook in the sea. You might catch small fish or big fish.”
The Nigerian said he treats the issue like a game.
However, according to the BBC, the scammer had a change of heart when he watched Ros and Mark’s recorded message.
He said he was “almost crying” and felt “very bad”.
In September, a US court sentenced two Nigerian brothers who targeted a 17-year-old in a sextortion scam, to 17 years and six months in prison.
Jordan DeMay killed himself less than six hours after he started talking to the brothers who pretended to be a girl his age and flirted with him on Instagram.
The prosecution was the first successful measure against sextortion in the US, where it is a rapidly growing cybercrime, often linked to Nigeria.
Murray’s parents also blamed social media companies for not doing enough to protect children online.
In July, Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, said it had removed 63,000 accounts in Nigeria linked to sextortion scams.
Last month, Meta said it deleted another 1,600 groups linked to ‘Yahoo Boys’ from its platform.
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