You’re 17 years old, and your life is just beginning. Little do you know that you will be part of a sextortion scheme that will ultimately result in your death.
This is what happened to 17-year-old Jordan DeMay of Marquette, Michigan. When two brothers, Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, set out to exploit and extort young people for profit.
Before DeMay’s death, one of the brothers bought a hacked account and created a fake profile under the name “Dani Robertts.” On March 25th, 2022, those involved in the scheme contacted DeMay for the first time.
Much like the other victims, of which there were over 100, they asked the 17-year-old to send sexually explicit images of himself to them. Samuel Ogoshi took a picture of the image with his phone and shared that with the other men to make a collage which was used to extort DeMay.
The men involved in the scheme demanded hundreds of dollars from the teenager. DeMay sent $300.
When DeMay threatened to kill himself, Roberts told him to do it. After that, the 17-year-old took his own life. According to the BBC, DeMay took his life only six hours after their initial communication started.
Before DeMay’s death, the brothers went hunting for young people they could exploit.
According to court documents, the men bought social media accounts and used them to mask their identities, making it look like they were young women. They made fake profiles and directly messaged accounts associated with the victims they planned to extort.
But before that, they did their research. They found out everything they possibly could about their victims, including where they lived, what school they went to, where they worked, and who their family and friends were.
When they had sufficient information, they asked their 100-plus victims to produce sexually explicit images of themselves, and many people did, including 11 minor victims.
According to a plea agreement, the Ogoshi brothers and their co-conspirators encouraged minors to engage in sexual activities, including masturbation.
Once these images were sent, the men created a collage of pictures that included images of the victim’s family, friends, co-workers, and the sexually explicit material. The Ogoshi brothers threatened their victims with these collages and said that they would send them to everyone the victim knew if they didn’t get what they wanted – money.
This is what is commonly known as sextortion, when criminals lure people, usually young people, into sending them sexually explicit images or videos of themselves to then use as blackmail.
Once the images had been obtained and the collages had been made and sent to their victims, the two brothers and a man named Ezekiel Ejehem Robert instructed the teenagers to send money using Apple Pay, Zelle, and other payment apps.
However, on some occasions, the men did distribute the collages to other people as part of their scheme.
For their crimes, the Ogoshi brothers have been sentenced to 17 years and six months in a US jail with five years of supervised release.
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