Proof Its a SCAM
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/s ... itary-ncisU.S.-based scams can be more sinister. These perpetrators troll free dating sites like Plenty of Fish and MeetMe.com, Bolduc said, and the approach is usually more gradual. They'll strike up a conversation with a target, start to form what seems like a genuine relationship and only then start sending explicit pictures.
But in some cases, days or weeks later, the service member will get a call from someone claiming that the girl is underage. The caller will say "pay me or I'll tell the cops." This happened to one service member who told NCIS agents that a woman contacted him through Facebook to ask for money to help pay for her grandmother's surgery. "She sent me a nude picture and asked for one from me. She wanted to meet [and] have sex with me," the victim said, according to interview notes NCIS provided to Military Times. "After I hadn’t talked to her for a while, I got a message from a guy saying I had to pay for the damage I had done."
"So now our poor service member believes that he’s in possession of child pornography," McDonald said. "The guy says he is her father. He wants money to pay for mental health treatment — maybe says she attempted suicide — in exchange for not reporting it."
Then, perhaps, another man will call, claiming to be local law enforcement and encouraging the service member to pay the girl's father. Or in one case, the suspect posed as an NCIS agent, said the agency's spokesman, Ed Buice. That's when panic can set in.
"A service member who feels like they’ve been duped into taking their pants off and paying money is one thing, but it ratchets way up when the service member thinks that he has been sent child pornography," Buice said. "Now he's willing to do anything, and pay any amount of money, to keep his secret."
When a sailor or Marine makes a sextortion report, NCIS agents run all of the images through the International Crimes Against Children database, to ensure they don't match any known exploited underage kids. Separately, that's been a big focus for U.S. law enforcement. According to more than 600 agencies surveyed in the National Child Exploitation Threat Assessment, enticement of children online is on the rise. In late-November, a Minnesota man was sentenced to 38 years in prison after targeting more than 150 underage boys as part of a sextortion scheme.
More often than not, women are seldom involved, officials said. The photos are often stolen from Instagram or Google, and the women whose likenesses are being used won't even know their pictures are involved. Buice called these scams "scripted." It's "dinner theater," he said.
"When the scheme first came to our attention, they were using photos of active-duty female Marines to help legitimize their profiles," McDonald added. "Because if it’s a fellow Marine, I’m more likely to accept that friend request."
Catching and punishing these scammers has proven exceedingly difficult. NCIS officials say that, despite all of the reports, they've been unable to prosecute even one perpetrator. So they've focused instead on prevention, telling service members to not send compromising photos or videos to strangers on the internet.
Law enforcement officials want people to know that, if they become ensnared in a sextortion scam, they should cease correspondence immediately, save all communication they've had and, above all, don't send any money.
"If these individuals pay at all, [the scammers] will ask for more money," Bolduc said. "... These perpetrators know that [military personnel] have a steady income. ... They know they get paid on the first [of the month], they get paid on the fifteenth. These perpetrators also know that they’re held to a higher standard. Threatening that their career may go down the drain is terrifying to a young service member."
The sailor who spoke with Military Times said that if service members are on social media, they should refrain from posting photos of themselves in uniform. Don't list your job either, he said, and if a scammer says they can revoke a security clearance, it's likely an empty threat.
If you're going to chat with strangers online, he said, don't be so quick to get undressed. "Just try to get to know people a little better," he added. "Try to get a little more out of them before you try to do anything interesting."
Myers is a reporter with Army Times. On Twitter: @MeghannReports.
