NewsWatch.com.ng journalist Esther Odili has over two years of expertise overlaying political events and actions.
The FBI has arrested 22 Nigerians allegedly concerned in a financially motivated sextortion scheme that has been blamed for greater than 20 teen suicides in the US since 2021.
The company introduced in a press release shared on its web site on Thursday, April 24, 2025.
Within the report, the arrests had been a part of a first-of-its-kind world operation, codenamed Artemis, carried out in collaboration with regulation enforcement companies in Canada, Australia, Nigeria, and the UK.
As reported by The Punch, the FBI launched Operation Artemis practically two years in the past after receiving 1000’s of stories of adlescent boys being coerced into sharing sexually specific pictures on-line after which extorted with threats of publicity except they paid.
In these sextortion schemes, minors, sometimes boys, are befriended on-line by people posing as younger girls who persuade them to trade nude pictures.
As soon as the victims comply, they’re demanded to ship cash to forestall the photographs from being shared.
Investigators famous that even when victims pay, the calls for usually persist, and threats escalate.
The FBIâs Web Crime Grievance Middle (IC3) reported over 34,000 sextortion victims in 2023, rising to greater than 54,000 final yr, with {financial} losses totalling practically $65 million over the previous two years.
As reported by The Cable, in Nigeria, FBI Particular Agent Matthew Crowley interviewed suspects to grasp their motives for selecting sextortion over different {financial} scams, similar to romance fraud or enterprise e mail compromise.
She added:
The devastating impression of those schemes was underscored by an American father whose 16-year-old son died by suicide in 2023 after sextortion threats.
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In the meantime, NewsWatch.com.ng reported that the Anambra state authorities has distanced itself from Franklin Nwadialo, the newly elected chairman of Ogbaru LGA, who was arrested within the US by the FBI for allegedly perpetrating a $3.3 million romance rip-off.
Regulation Mefor, the state’s commissioner for info, stated Nwadialo just isn’t a direct appointee of Governor Soludo.
Mefor stated the Anambra state authorities will not defend him, simply as an APGA chieftain speaks on the following political step which may be taken within the absence of the embattled LGA chair.
Supply: NewsWatch.com.ng
