ABCIPI's War On Sextortion

Case Study


Mr Smith came to  ABCIPI after he had become the victim of sextortion.


History

Mr Smith worked away on business for long spells. Alone in his hotel room at night, he started to visit porn sites. He then answered an email from a girl in The Ukraine inviting him to a private chat. Mr Smith accepted the invitation and began to talk to what he thought was a single lady looking to connect to people on the Internet. Their talk soon became more intimate, and they began to indulge in online sex. This went on for about a month, while Mr Smith was travelling.

The Sting

One evening when Mr Smith had finished work and retired to his hotel room, he opened his emails to find an email from the Ukrainian woman he had been speaking to online. The email informed him that all of the scenes of sexual activity they shared together had been filmed. Mr Smith was warned that if he did not immediately pay the money demanded through Western Union his computer mailing lists that had also been hacked, would have the video sent to them. This included his wife, grown-up children, family members, work colleagues, his fellow golf club members and members of his church.

The Reaction

Like a lot of people Mr Smith’s first reaction was to pay the money to his blackmailers so that he could avoid any of the information or videos that they had being sent to his mailing lists. However, fortunately before he did that, he remembered  ABCIPI, and some work we had done for his Company in the past tracking down some creditors. We took the call from him on a Wednesday
afternoon. He was clearly distraught and very worried, and he advised us that he was still thinking that the safest thing to do would be to pay the money over. We advised him that that would be the worst thing he could do, because it would most likely not be the last he would hear of his blackmailers, who having received money once, would almost certainly press for more.

The Plan

We made an appointment for one of our operatives to visit Mr Smith at his hotel so that they can take what details we needed from his laptop. Within hours our dedicated cybercrime team had identified the address for the IPL from which the emails were being sent.

The Remedy

Next, our team on the ground in the Ukraine were able to track down the physical address from which the sextortionists were working. They were also able to gather information from other people who had suffered similar demands for money from this criminal gang. At this point local law-enforcement became involved, and in a joint operation the house was raided, computers and other tech seized, and all the occupants were arrested.

The Result

Mr Smith was reassured that the threat to disseminate the videos and other material have been neutralised. His relief was obvious and as well as cleaning his computer to ensure that no material remained, we installed advanced firewall protection to protect him in the future.


If you have been the victim of sextortion or any other kind of online fraud, you can be sure that  ABCIPI will be able to help you. We count ourselves at the forefront of work being done on cybercrime in all its different forms, and we will be able to help you. Call us now for a free and confidential chat.