Sextortion: Strip.....& Pay

Tip-off by HK victim led to raid on Philippine 'sextortion' syndicate
By Li Xueying, The Sunday Times, 4 May 2014

It started with an invitation to a Skype conversation with an attractive Filipina called Sheila Fabian. It then progressed to online sex. After the second rendezvous, on Nov 5, Hong Konger "Jay" was sent nude photos and videos of himself - and a demand for money.

"The suspects threatened to upload the nude photos and obscene acts of the victim on Facebook and YouTube," recounted Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group director Gilbert C. Sosa. "The threat prompted the victim to agree to their extortion demand."

But Jay did not take it lying down. He complained to the Philippine consulate in Hong Kong on Jan 27, and it helped trigger a sting operation, reported the Manila-based Journal Online.

Last week, a joint task force called Operation Strikeback, led by Interpol and the Philippine authorities, netted 58 Filipinos - 48 men and 10 women - for their alleged involvement in what has been dubbed "sextortion".

Also seized were more than 200 items including computers or tablets, mobile phones, ATM cards and remittance receipts.

Operating out of call centre-like facilities in northern Philippines, the suspects allegedly created fake Facebook and Skype accounts and masqueraded as attractive women from the Philippines, South Korea or Japan to ensnare victims. Their modus operandi includes stripping in front of a webcam and inviting their prey to do the same.

Victims over the past couple of years number in at least the hundreds, and hail from Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, the United States and Britain. Agencies from these places were also involved in helping to gather intelligence for the operation.

Among the victims of what is dubbed "Naked Chat Blackmail" here, 638 are from Hong Kong.

Five of them are women, say the Hong Kong police in response to Sunday Times queries. Victims range from a 14-year-old student to a 58-year-old. Of them, 20 per cent paid up, yielding a total of HK$2.4 million (S$388,000). Showing that the suspects took what they could, the amounts extorted ranged from HK$128 to more than HK$100,000.

Yesterday, the Philippine government warned that crackdowns on such syndicates will continue. Those caught last week, it said, represented only the tip of the iceberg.

"The apprehension of the 58 suspects allegedly involved in sextortion activities is a product of our continued coordination with other law enforcement agencies like the Interpol," said deputy presidential spokesman Abigail Valte. "We hope that this sends a strong message that we do not tolerate exploitation in our shores."

The authorities in the region, including Malaysia and Hong Kong, advised people to be wary of such scams. "We urge the people to be vigilant as they make friends online, to prevent falling prey to criminal groups," said the Hong Kong police.

"Sextortion" is the latest variant on the age-old "honey trap". In Hong Kong, using illicit sex - or the promise of it - to extort money has its own colloquial name, wong geuk gai, which means to catch a yellow-legged chicken. It came about because farmers in south China would catch roosters stealthily while they were copulating by identifying them by the shade of their legs - a deeper yellow than that of hens.

Mr Stephen Char, a former anti-corruption investigator, said it was common for triad members to extort money by getting women to seduce victims, and then bursting into the hotel rooms to accuse them of having affairs with their wives or girlfriends before demanding that they pay up or get beaten up.

Today, the widespread use of smartphones to surf the Internet - at 96 per cent, Hong Kong has the highest number of such users in Asia-Pacific - could have made residents more vulnerable to the online version of such scams, he said.

The police did not respond to queries on the number of such cases. But in response to growing cybercrime, they set up a Cyber Security Centre in December 2012. They conceded in a report last year that policing of cybercrime is a "somewhat vexed and neglected area".

Teen chose suicide after online threat
The Sunday Times, 4 May 2014

When 17-year-old Daniel Perry of Scotland realised that a girl who had lured him into a sexy Skype chat was not what she seemed, he asked: "What can I do to stop you showing this to my family?"

Blackmailers in the Philippines gave him the number of a bank account into which he was to deposit the kind of cash few teens have and ordered him to pay up. Failing that, they told him he "would be better off dead".

"You need to let a blade meet your throat," wrote one of his tormentors, according to London's Daily Mirror. "Kill yourself, mate," snapped another.

Little more than an hour later, Daniel did just that. He simply responded: "Bye". Then he texted his grandmother to say he was on his way home. Instead, he went to the Forth Road Bridge, outside Edinburgh, and jumped.

A rescue boat pulled him from the water alive, according to a report last Aug 15, but Daniel died a short time later.

Police Scotland became involved in investigating the ring after the teenager's death, the BBC reported last Friday. The Mail reported last August that Detective Chief Inspector Gary Cunningham, of Police Scotland's specialist crime division, had flown to Manila to work with the authorities in the Philippines, after establishing a task force involving police from the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Scotland.

There were no details on exactly what kind of sexual antics Daniel, an aspiring apprentice mechanic who lived in Dunfermline, Fife, was provoked into. But investigators say the criminals coax victims into stripping and performing sex acts in front of their webcams.

The sextortion ring then tracks down the victim's family and friends on Facebook or other social media sites, hijacks the conversation and threatens to send the video to them.

London's Mirror reported last year that child welfare charities have warned that they get dozens of calls a week from suicidal children as young as 11 being targeted for sextortion.

Daniel's mother Nicola Perry told the BBC last Friday that the way in which her son was tricked into the scam was "every parent's worst nightmare".

"After being targeted by complete strangers online, he was left so traumatised by his ordeal that he chose to take his own life," she said.

"Whoever was at the other end of that computer did not know Daniel.

"They didn't care that he was a loving and caring person with his whole life ahead of him.

"To them, he was just another faceless victim to exploit for cash."

Sexually explicit video clips can cost more than just money
By Audrey Tan, The Sunday Times, 4 May 2014

The use of cybersex videos to extort money is just the tip of the iceberg, warned experts in Singapore. Such sexually explicit clips can end up being used to coerce victims into having sex with online predators.

They may also be used to force victims to hand over information about other people, widening the net on those being blackmailed.

"By getting such information, culprits could threaten family members and force the victim to have actual sex," said Dr Carol Balhetchet, senior director of youth services at the Singapore Children Society.

And an explicit video may not be seen only by the person it was sent to.

"Because of the anonymity of the Internet, victims may think they are having cybersex with one person, but it could actually be more - it could be 'cyber gang rape'," she said.

Victims as young as 10 may fall prey given the large amount of time spent online, she said.

"Sextortion", or the use of sexual information, photographs or videos to extort money or favours from the victim, seems to be on the rise.

In Singapore, cyber extortion cases increased from 64 in 2012 to 108 cases last year.

Sextortion cases are classified under this, but separate figures were unavailable.

In February, a 28-year-old Indian national, electrical wireman Mani Velmurugan, was sentenced to 32 months' jail after pleading guilty to nine charges of criminal intimidation.

He tricked 17 women he had met online into sending him naked pictures of themselves. He later used the photos to try and get them to have sex with him.

A month later, budget airline flight attendant Kishenraj Rengaraj, 22, was fined $5,000 for threatening to upload a video of a woman stripping.

Last Friday, Singapore police confirmed they were involved in the Interpol-coordinated Operation Strikeback, which targeted organised crime networks behind global sextortion cases. Investigations are ongoing.

Mr Daniel Koh, a psychologist from Insights Mind Centre, said scammers behind such cases were "opportunists" who identified victims by focusing on their weaknesses.

He added that even if victims were aware of the danger, they may get caught up in their online activity and give in to requests. This, he said, is not restricted to one particular segment of the population.

"However, those who keep to themselves and do not have support can be more vulnerable," he said.

Mr Chong Ee Jay, assistant manager at Touch Cyber Wellness, said victims often have a false sense of security as they are in their own homes and not interacting face-to-face with the other party.

A global report last year showed that two in five respondents felt "the convenience of being constantly connected outweighed any potential security risks".

Mr Eugene Teo, senior manager of Security Response at cyber security firm Symantec Singapore, said the figure was "alarming".

"Singaporeans could have a sense of complacency when it comes to online security," he said.

Security experts, such as Barracuda Networks' Mr Anshuman Singh and Mr Dick Bussiere of Tenable Network Security, warned that with hacking attacks becoming more sophisticated, private content could fall into the wrong hands without the victim even realising it.

Hackers could, for example, gain access into a person's webcam surreptitiously.

Mr Singh said: "When hackers activate the webcam, they can ensure that the indicator light doesn't come on - so there is no way you will know that someone is watching you."

S'pore police advise public to be careful on Internet

By Priscilla Goy, The Straits Times, 3 May 2014

INTERNET "sextortion" cases have also occurred in Singapore.

Such cases are enough of a concern for the police here to run a crime prevention poster showing a half-naked man ensnared by an attractive woman online.

"Don't expose yourself to extortion", reads the poster's headline. It also urges the public to "think before baring it all" and advises them to be wary of video chatting with strangers.

In Singapore, cyber extortion cases increased from 64 cases in 2012 to 108 cases last year. "Sextortion" cases are classified under this, but separate figures are unavailable.

Yesterday, the police here confirmed they were involved in the Interpol-coordinated bust Operation Strikeback, targeted at organised crime networks behind "sextortion" cases around the world.

While they continue to help the Philippine National Police in its ongoing investigations, police advised the public here to take the following preventive measures when interacting online:

- Be wary of messages from unknown people who want to befriend you.

- Do not accede to any request that may put you in vulnerable positions, such as performing compromising acts in front of the webcam, or giving personal details when interacting with other Internet users.

- If anyone tries to extort money from you or should you become a victim of such an attempt, call the police immediately.

- Do not remit or transfer money.

Dozens in Philippines busted for 'sextortion'
Industrial-style businesses blackmail victims online with racy photos
The Straits Times, 3 May 2014

MANILA - Dozens of people have been arrested in the Philippines in a multinational crackdown on the exploding global menace of Internet "sextortion", according to Interpol and local police.

Yesterday's announcement was the first major bust involving "sextortion". Industrial-style businesses run out of the Philippines have blackmailed hundreds of people around the world, luring them on social media before extracting sexually explicit information or images, they said.

Interpol cybercrime chief Sanjay Virmani said 58 people were arrested this week in the Philippines, but stressed that they were only a small part of a fast-growing phenomenon with similar operations in other parts of the world.

The authorities in the multinational taskforce said the scammers targeted people of varying ages in countries as diverse as Indonesia, Singapore, the United States, Australia and Scotland in the last three to four years.

Mr Virmani, director of Interpol's Singapore-based Digital Crime Centre, said "sextortion" had emerged as a major concern in recent years as criminals took advantage of more people using social media and greater mobile Internet access. "This is just a taste of things to come," he added.

In one case highlighted by Interpol, a 17-year-old boy in Scotland hurled himself from a bridge last year after being blackmailed.

Detective chief inspector Gary Cunningham, from the Scottish police's major investigation team, said: "He just engaged in a chat online and then engaged with the suspect, who then caught him in a Web act, threatened to send that worldwide and then made various demands for money which resulted in (him) taking his own life."

Philippine police said the blackmailers initially made contact with the boy via Facebook. Three Filipinos linked to that scam were among those arrested this week.

Philippine police chief Alan Purisima said the 58 people detained would be charged with a range of crimes, including engaging in child pornography, extortion and using technologies to commit fraud.

Mr Purisima said the scam typically involved the extorters creating fake identities of attractive, young women to make contact with people overseas via Facebook and other social media.

"After getting acquainted with the victims... they engage in cybersex and this will be recorded, unknown to the victims," he said. "They then threaten to release it to friends and relatives."

Blackmail demands ranged from US$500 to US$15,000 (S$630 to S$18,800), according to Interpol, which described extremely well-run businesses controlled by organised crime gangs.

"Operating on an almost industrial scale from call centre-style offices, such cyber-blackmail agents are provided with training and offered bonus incentives such as holidays, cash or mobile phones for reaching their financial targets," Interpol said.

In Hong Kong, police said there have been over 600 victims since the start of last year. Globally, the number of victims could run into the "thousands, quite possibly", though many were reluctant to go to the police "maybe out of embarrassment of being outed", Mr Virmani said.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS