Vivienne Clarke
A Garda crime prevention officer has warned of an ongoing scam targeted at young people which attempts to coerce them into paying blackmail money.
Sergeant Dean Kerins told Newstalk Breakfast that while the concept was not new, there had been a number of cases recently where young boys were blackmailed in “a complete and utter scam”.
“It started off very simply, a young boy got a friend request from a complete stranger — that started off innocently, but very quickly it proceeded to a situation where the lady in question started sending inappropriate and sexual images of herself to the young man and then looked for them in return — it happened very quickly, in the space of an hour all this happened.
Digital blackmail
“Then the digital blackmail started almost straight away where a third party started looking for money from the young boys.
“It is a complete and utter scam. Europol brought this to our attention a few years ago, so we're just following on this awareness campaign over the last few years, but it's not just related to boys it can happen to young girls as well. It's for all parties to be aware.”
Sgt Kerins said that the most recent cases involved the blackmail of young boys.
“It has been going on for a number of years now, it is a pure scam — the way it starts is the same in all of them. It starts with a completely innocent friend request, and then it progresses very quickly.
“The images aren't real, and we need to get that across to young people, when they get a friend request from a stranger who then progresses very quickly to sending inappropriate or sexual images, they should be thinking scam straight away and not fall for this.”
The crime prevention officer urged anyone targeted not to share the information, “don’t pay the money, seek help, don't delete evidence. Block the number and report to us, we will be there to help them out”.
