Victims in 20 countries: Australian sentenced to 17 years in jail for sextortion

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A 29-year-old Australian man has been sentenced to 17 years in prison after pleading guilty in December 2023 in one of the worst sextortion cases in history, Ars Technica reports. The Perth man pretended to be a well-known underage YouTuber, manipulated chat messages and blackmailed 286 victims, including 180 minors, from 20 different countries – including Germany, the Netherlands, France, Ireland, Italy, Israel, Japan, Namibia, New Zealand, in addition to Australia. The victims were asked to perform sexually explicit acts in front of the camera or in the video and also for other unknown persons.

Perpetrator posed as a famous teenage YouTuber

The perpetrator contacted young women whose friend lists were visible via social media. Once he had gained the victims' trust, he manipulated them into sharing explicit material. He then blackmailed them into sending the material to their family and friends if they did not provide even more explicit videos. In some cases, according to the Australian news magazine ABC, he is said to have exchanged information with other perpetrators in groups about which accounts potential victims were behind or about other strategies.

According to the Australian Federal Police (AFP), this is one of the worst sextortion cases in history. The perpetrator was sentenced to 17 years in prison and will not be eligible for parole until 2033 at the earliest. His demands are said to have been humiliating and sometimes involved other young family members, as ABC reported. According to ABC, he also allegedly put his victims under even more pressure with a countdown. Some of the victims had become suicidal as a result of the blackmail.

Cooperation between police authorities

According to the press release, the AFP worked closely with the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Interpol to get to the bottom of the sextortion case. The investigation began in 2019 and since then the police have been examining chat logs, videos and photos of the man. The police are also working with international law enforcement agencies to identify the victims. At the time, the police confiscated a cell phone, hard drives and USB sticks. He had also already come to the attention of the Western Australia Police Force (WAPF) because of another case of child abuse, according to the AFP.

Various cases of sextortion

The police regularly warn of such and similar cases. Criminals often pretend to be women and often make male victims perform sexual acts in front of the camera in order to blackmail them with the material afterwards. As early as 2014, Interpol reported that hundreds of thousands of internet users worldwide are estimated to have already fallen victim to similar blackmail.

(mack)