Suspected sextortion blackmailer “made £2million” threatening to release embarrassing pictures and videos of boys
A suspected sextortion blackmailer is believed to have made up to £2million by threatening to release embarrassing photos and videos of boys.
Olamide Shanu, 33, will appear in court in London later this month following an extradition request from the United States.
Shanu is accused of posing as a teenage girl online to convince boys to send sexually explicit photos.
It is claimed he then threatened to send the compromising images to his victims’ families, friends and even the media if they refused to pay him.
At least three British schoolchildren have committed suicide after being blackmailed over sexually explicit images.
Olamide Shanu, 33, from Nigeria, is accused of posing as a teenage girl online to convince boys to send sexually explicit photos as part of an international scam
Text messages sent between an extortionist and their victim who thought he was speaking to a beautiful woman before the scammer threatened to make their private photos public
One alleged victim set up a payment plan with Shanu, sending him £240 a week until he handed the blackmailer almost £8,000.
Shanu’s cryptocurrency account is believed to have received more than 6,000 payments in three years, leading researchers to estimate the number of victims in the hundreds.
The National Crime Agency issued a stark warning last week, saying schoolchildren were being targeted in extortion fraud.
They said the number of cases involving children has increased dramatically in two years, reaching 890 in 2022.
The high-profile cases include Murray Dowey, 16, from Dunblane, Scotland, who died in December last year after being the target of a blackmail plot with possible links to Nigeria.
Dinal de Alwis, 16, from Sutton, south London, was also the victim of blackmail.
An inquest heard in February that the private schoolboy committed suicide in 2022 after an extortionist threatened to send nude photos to all his social media followers if he did not send them money.
The times reported that the threat is believed to come from Nigeria.
Parents Mark and Ros Dowey have spoken out about the heartless scam that claimed their son’s life
Gifted schoolboy Dinal de Alwis hoped to study at Cambridge before committing suicide after being blackmailed over sexually explicit photos
Shanu, a Nigerian, is accused of being involved in international blackmail.
He was arrested in Surrey late last year and will appear at Westminster District Court on May 28.
The alleged extortionist is wanted in the US on charges including conspiracy to commit cyberstalking, interstate communications with intent to commit racketeering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The U.S. Secret Service has alleged that Shanu and other conspirators used fake and stolen online profiles containing photos of attractive women to target boys via Instagram and other social media platforms.
They then persuaded their victims to send explicit images and videos of themselves and even appear naked in ‘live chat’ sessions, while the conspirators posed as adult film actresses to conceal their true identities.
The victims were threatened and blackmailed into making payments via gift cards or cryptocurrency.
Extortionists also used stolen Snapchat accounts to target American victims.
One, contacted in May last year, thought he was chatting with Chloe Walterz, but the account had been stolen from a 16-year-old girl.
The boy handed over $1,000 before freezing the account.
Another American victim was also targeted by ‘Chloe’ on Instagram.
The boy thought he was talking to a young white woman and exchanged sexually explicit images via Snapchat.
‘Chloe’ then threatened to release the photos to 200 of the boy’s friends and paid the blackmailer $300 under threat every Friday until he had transferred a total of $10,000.
The payments were all traced to an account in Binance, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, which was opened using Shanu’s passport as proof of identity, along with an address in Lagos.
By the time the account was traced, it had been emptied; the $2.6 million worth of bitcoin amassed in the previous three years.
Secret Service Special Agent Luke Lack wrote in the complaint that the Binance account had received money from victims of various types of fraud, including extortion and romance scams.
Secret Service investigators reportedly linked the account to email addresses containing other identifying documents belonging to Shanu, and screenshots of messages showing his involvement in the extortion scheme, including one with the name Chloe Walterz.
They also identified two other alleged victims.
For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org