I did a little digging today to check out how much of a growth we’ve had in people reporting sextortion scammers. Here’s what I came up with. Our first report came in around 3 years ago. The first year, we had around 100 forms filled in with scammer details. The second year that number shot up to 1500. This past year we had around 4000 reports. We can’t be sure how much of that increase came from rasied awareness and how much came from the scam being used more often. Either way, as the title says, these are some scary stats.
So what’s next?
After Crimewatch, there’s still a few media things in the pipeline. The biggest issue we have is that most media request involve “Can you get someone to come on and tell their story for an article we’re doing tomorrow?”. Most victims really don’t want to do that. Sextortion ones doubly so. If anyone is a victim of a scam and would be willing to appear on TV (anonymously of course) then please let me know. We can build up a database then and hopefully make it easier.
Crimewatch item on sextortion
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/40DhRnbN7b69gMkPqsJ1m0Q/sextortion
Featuring someone from a site you may know.
Sextortion
Sextortion is a crime rapidly on the increase. Also known as ‘webcam blackmail’, it refers to criminals deceiving webcam users into unclothing and performing a sexual act.
This footage is recorded and then used to blackmail victims for money. It is an international, organised crime, making it difficult for the police to capture the criminals responsible.
British police believe the crime is growing but that the true numbers involved could be far higher than those reported due to the embarrassment that can be caused. The worse cases can be fatal – 17-year-old Daniel Perry from Dunfermline, took his own life in 2013, only an hour after being targeted.
Creator of website ‘Voices of Internet Crime, Speak Out!’ (VOIC.org.uk) and revenge porn victim Folami Prehaye, presents a report looking into the phenomenon of sextortion, which spans an unsuspecting victim’s story, advice from the Head of Cyber Intelligence at Interpol, footage of a globally organised crackdown and an exclusive interview with an undercover investigator at the National Crime Agency.
CBC article on sextortion.
Here’s the video:
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/BC/ID/2665068774/
Huge thanks to “Sam” for being brave enough to agree to the interview.
Really excited for Thursday.
Happy 4/19 day.
Yep, it’s that day of the year that scam baiters love – April 19th. When I spoke to my wife about it earlier, she asked why it was called a 419 scam. The answer is very simple. Section 419 of the Nigerian criminal code makes it an offence for people to obtain money or goods by deception. Most of these scams originate from West Africa, hence “419 scam”. Simple when you know.
Is it a year already?
They’re like buses.
More about Tuesday’s TV thing.
So on Tuesday I’ll be meeting Folami Prehaye of voic.org.uk for some filming. She’s also very kindly agreed to be interviewed for a podcast. As we’ll be meeting for the first time then, we spent some time today on the phone chatting. If you’re a victim of revenge porn, I thoroughly recommend checking her site out.
Ransomware strain breaks, victims avoid payment
This is well worth a read.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-strain-breaks-victims-avoid-payment/#ftag=YHFb1d24ec