A 17-year-old boy died by suicide hours after being scammed. The FBI says it is a part of a troubling enhance in ‘sextortion’ cases.

Within hours, the 17-year-old, straight-A scholar and Boy Scout had died by suicide.

"Somebody reached out to him pretending to be a girl, and they started a dialog," his mom, Pauline Stuart, advised CNN, preventing back tears as she described what happened to her son days after she and Ryan had finished visiting a number of schools he was considering attending after graduating high school.

The online conversation rapidly grew intimate, and then turned prison.

The scammer -- posing as a younger girl -- sent Ryan a nude photo after which asked Ryan to share an specific image of himself in return. Instantly after Ryan shared an intimate photograph of his own, the cybercriminal demanded $5,000, threatening to make the photo public and send it to Ryan's family and friends.

The San Jose, California, teen advised the cybercriminal he couldn't pay the full quantity, and the demand was finally lowered to a fraction of the unique determine -- $150. However after paying the scammers from his college financial savings, Stuart mentioned, "They kept demanding increasingly more and putting lots of continued strain on him."

On the time, Stuart knew none of what her son was experiencing. She learned the small print after legislation enforcement investigators reconstructed the events leading up to his demise.

She had said goodnight to Ryan at 10 p.m., and described him as her normally joyful son. By 2 a.m., he had been scammed, and taken his life. Ryan left behind a suicide observe describing how embarrassed he was for himself and the household.

"He really, truly thought in that point that there wasn't a strategy to get by if these footage had been truly posted online," Pauline stated. "His note showed he was completely terrified. No child should need to be that scared."

Regulation enforcement calls the scam "sextortion," and investigators have seen an explosion in complaints from victims leading the FBI to ramp up a marketing campaign to warn parents from coast to coast.

The bureau says there were over 18,000 sextortion-related complaints in 2021, with losses in extra of $13 million. The FBI says the use of youngster pornography by criminals to lure suspects additionally constitutes a critical crime.

The investigation into Final's case is ongoing, Stuart and the FBI inform CNN.

"To be a criminal that specifically targets kids -- it's one of many more deeper violations of trust I think in society," says FBI Supervisory Particular Agent Dan Costin, who leads a group of investigators working to counter crimes towards kids.

According to Costin, most of the sextortion scams reported to the FBI are determined to be from criminals on the African continent and in Southeast Asia. Federal investigators are working with their regulation enforcement counterparts around the world, Costin stated, to help establish and arrest perpetrators who are focusing on children online.

One challenge for the FBI: many victims of sextortion don't report the incidents to regulation enforcement.

"The embarrassment piece of that is in all probability one of the bigger hurdles that the victims have to beat," said Costin. "It can be so much, especially in that moment."

However investigators urge victims to rapidly contact regulation enforcement, either on-line or at their local FBI subject workplace.

Medical experts say there is a key purpose why young males are particularly weak to sextortion-related scams.

"Teen brains are still growing," mentioned Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent drugs at Mass General in Boston. "So when one thing catastrophic occurs, like a personal picture is launched to people on-line, it is laborious for them to look past that second and perceive that within the massive scheme of issues they will be capable of get by means of this."

Hadland said there are steps parents can take to help safeguard their children from online harm.

"A very powerful thing that a mum or dad should do with their teen is attempt to perceive what they're doing online," she mentioned. "You need to know when they're going online, who they're interacting with, what platforms they're using. Are they being approached by people who they do not know, are they experiencing stress to share info or pictures?"

Hadland stated it's also critical that folks specifically warn teenagers of scams like sextortion, with out shaming them.

"You wish to make it clear that they can discuss to you if they have performed one thing, or they really feel like they've made a mistake," he mentioned.

Ryan's mother agrees.

"It's essential to discuss to your children because we have to make them aware of it," Stuart stated.

Still grieving the loss of her son, she is channeling her household's ache into action, and honoring Ryan by talking out and telling his story. She hopes that doing so will assist save lives.

"How could these folks have a look at themselves within the mirror understanding that $150 is extra essential than a toddler's life?" she says. "There is no other phrase however 'evil' for me that they care much more about money than a child's life. I do not need anybody else to go through what we did."