By Emily Caulkett-
A 17-year-old boy from east London has been found guilty of stalking and harassing multiple girls online, engaging in a disturbing pattern of cybercrimes that culminated in his arrest by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
The teenager, whose identity has been anonymised for legal reasons, received a youth rehabilitation order at Guildford Crown Court with 18 months of intensive supervision and surveillance.
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The NCA uncovered the teen’s activities in early 2021, initially identifying him when he made fraudulent emergency requests for details of a girl living in the US to social media companies.
In order to obtain the information, he allegedly gained illegal access to the email accounts of Brazilian government officials. The agency stated that he then proceeded to publish the girl’s personal information online, coercing her with threats to send explicit photos.
“When she refused, he worked with others to make several false reports of shootings at her address – also known as ‘swatting’ – causing local police officers to attend,” the NCA reported.
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This unsettling revelation is just the tip of the iceberg. The boy reportedly extended his cyber harassment to other girls at his school, as well as online rivals. He was apprehended by the NCA in February 2021, at the age of 14, with officers seizing multiple electronic devices from his east London home.
Despite being released with bail conditions, the teen continued his criminal activities. Exploiting email accounts of overseas government officials from Gibraltar and Argentina, he targeted a female YouTuber. After obtaining her personal information, he spread defamatory misinformation about her, creating a false arrest warrant that he shared with her contacts through a fraudulent Discord account.
His offenses escalated, leading to his arrest in May 2021 for sending a package containing feces to the YouTuber’s home and spamming her Twitch livestream with insults and personal information.
The teenager faced charges and later pleaded guilty to sixteen offenses, including eleven counts of fraud by false representation and two counts of stalking involving serious alarm/distress.
In addition to his online harassment, the boy was investigated by the City of London Police for a hacking spree that targeted several global organizations, including telecoms, a computer parts manufacturer, and gaming companies between 2021 and 2022.
Jamie Horncastle, from the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, characterized the teen as a “technically skilled teenager” who chose to use his talents for illegal activities.
Horncastle emphasized the significant real-world consequences of online offending, stating, “This case is a prime example of online offending, which in many young people’s minds may appear as harmless fun but has significant and damaging real-world consequences. He now, rightly so, has a criminal record which will seriously impact his future.”
Authorities hope that the sentencing will send a strong message about the seriousness of such offenses and deter others from engaging in similar activities.
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