By Martin Cole-
Two people have been arrested in Nigeria over an alleged sextortion attempt against an Australian schoolboy who committed suicide.
New South Wales Police in Australia said the young males had threatened to send photos to the teenager’s friends and family if he did not pay .
The boy had been engaging online with an unknown person who threatened to share personal photos of him with his family and friends if he did not pay $500, NSW police said in a statement on Monday.em A$500 (£260; $330).
“The messages are horrific. They’re aggressive and put a lot of pressure on the boy to pay the money,” the police force’s cyber-crime commander, Matthew Craft, told the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH).
Australian detectives worked with their counterparts in South Africa and Nigeria to trace the suspected perpetrators to a slum in Nigeria.
Cops found evidence on the accused phones that the pair had also tried to extort other people was found on their phones. They have been charged over the alleged extortion of the Australian boy, but not his death.
Local authorities said they “have the power to prosecute for Australian-based offences”.
There have been several cases in Canada and the US in recent years of teenagers who have killed themselves after being targeted by sextortion plots.
Det Supt Craft said his team had seen a “huge spike” in sextortion cases and has appealed for anyone targeted to contact police.
“[They] are up nearly 400% in the last 18 months,” he said in a statement.
“We want young people to continue to report these cases, and to never be embarrassed to talk to police.
“Sextortion is a very real crime… These arrests in Nigeria show just how far police are willing to go to seek justice on behalf of our young community.”
Although Nigeria has tried to crack down on internet fraud in recent years, it remains a tempting way to make money for some of the country’s many thousands of unemployed graduates.
The cross-border nature of the crime makes it more difficult for the authorities to tackle, although some Nigerians have also been the victims of sextortion and so-called honeytrap scams.