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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