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A Michigan judge on Thursday sentenced Nigerian brothers Samuel and Samson Ogoshi to serve 17½ years in prison for their respective roles in a sextortion scheme that victimized 100 individuals and led to Michigan teenager Jordan DeMay's suicide in 2022.
"I think, at the end of the day, this case is a testament to what we can do as a country and put some validity to what's really happening online to young people," Jordan's father, John DeMay, told Fox News Digital. "It shows people that [sextortion] is real. I think that's the most important part of the sentence. That was the last piece of this puzzle … that says, ‘Hey, this is a legitimate claim.’"
U.S. District Judge Robert J. Jonker handed down the decision Thursday morning, marking the first time in the nation's history that Nigerian sextortion scammers have been extradited to the United States and sentenced to prison, the FBI confirmed to Fox News Digital.
AFTER MICHIGAN TEEN'S SUICIDE, NIGERIAN BROTHERS PLEAD GUILTY TO PLANNING DEADLY SEXTORTION SCHEME
"Today’s sentencing of Samuel and Samson Ogoshi sends a thundering message," U.S. Attorney Mark Totten for the Western District of Michigan said in a statement Thursday. "To criminals who commit these schemes: You are not immune from justice. We will track you down and hold you accountable, even if we have to go half-way around the world to do so. The day when you could commit these crimes, rake in easy cash, destroy lives, and escape justice is gone."
Sextortion is a social media crime trend in which bad actors trick victims, many of them minors, to engage in sexual acts or send blackmail money, according to the FBI.
Totten pleaded with parents, teenagers and "everyone who uses a cellphone" to "please be careful."
"Don’t assume people are who they say they are," Totten added. "Don’t share compromising images. And if you’re a victim, please reach out. There’s help, and law enforcement stands ready."
Jordan DeMay was 17 years old in March 2022, when Samuel Ogoshi, now 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, both of Lagos, Nigeria, worked together to pose as a woman on Instagram using a hacked account and strike up a conversation with the teenager, ultimately blackmailing him into sending money and threatening him for more until he took his own life in March 2022.
MICHIGAN FAMILY SOUNDS ALARM ON SON'S 'SEXTORTION' SUICIDE AFTER ARRESTS OF 3 NIGERIAN MEN
The same night the Ogoshis started communicating with Jodan through Instagram, the teenager sent an explicit photo of himself to the account that he thought belonged to a woman.
Samuel Ogoshi threatened to expose it and make it go "viral" online if Jordan did not immediately send money, prosecutors said. Jordan complied and sent him money, but the crime only escalated from there as Ogoshi demanded more and more money from the 17-year-old.
The exchange went on for hours on a single night until Jordan told Ogoshi he was going to kill himself.
"Good," he wrote. "Do that fast. Or I'll make you do it. I swear to God."
NIGERIAN MEN TO FACE US JUSTICE IN SEXTORTION SCHEME THAT LED TO TEEN'S SUICIDE
The FBI received more than 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion involving at least 12,600 victims between October 2021 and March 2023.
They also targeted 100 victims, including at least 11 other minors, in similar schemes, according to the Justice Department.
The DOJ said both perpetrators, who pleaded guilty to their crimes, purchased the hacked social media accounts they used to pose as young women on fake profiles that they utilized to catfish victims — or, in other words, make victims believe the fake accounts were real.
They then conducted extensive online research about the victims they targeted, going as far as finding out where they lived, what schools they attended, where they worked and the identities of their families and friends, all in an effort to have personal material to use against them.
Once the victim sent nude images, the Ogoshi brothers would create a collage of the victim's sexually explicit photos and threaten to share them with the victim's families, friends and across their schools unless the victim agreed to pay cash to stop them.
Sending cash, however, does not stop sextortion scams, according to experts familiar with the crime. Sending cash to scammers will only lead them to demand more and more from their victims, creating an endless cycle of threats and a feeling of hopelessness for victims.
John DeMay noted that, as part of negotiations between the U.S. and Nigerian governments to extradite the Ogoshi brothers, U.S. officials had to take the death penalty off the table. The brothers also had their charges reduced as part of their plea agreements.
"So, now, when we go into the sentencing guidelines, which is a 15- to a 30-year sentence, they've already given them a ton of reprieve," DeMay explained. "They have already given them a ton of concessions. So, that's where I have a little bit of an issue with only 17 years, because they already knocked off 5 to 10 years on the lesser charge they already pulled off. They already pulled other charges off the top in the very beginning."
Defense attorneys painted the Ogoshi brothers as victims, saying terrorists had burned down their home in Nigeria when they were children. Their attorneys also said they had been using drugs while carrying out these sextortion crimes online, DeMay said.
The Ogoshis' attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment.
"The sentencing of sextortionists Samuel and Samson Ogoshi ensures both international criminals will no longer victimize minors in the United States or throughout the world," Special Agent in Charge Cheyvoryea Gibson of the FBI Detroit Field Office said in a statement.
"Spreading awareness on sextortion is a top priority of the FBI here in Michigan. Our hearts and prayers are with the loved ones of Jordan DeMay and those affected by the criminal acts of these individuals."
The average age of sextortion victims is between 14 and 17 years old, the FBI said in a press release earlier this year, but the agency noted that any child can become a victim.
Offenders of financially motivated sextortion typically originate from African and Southeast Asian countries, according to the FBI. The FBI also saw a 20% increase in sextortion incidents involving minors between October 2022 and March 2023.
Sextortion can lead to suicide and self-harm. Between October 2021 and March 2023, the majority of online financial extortion victims were boys. These reports involved at least 20 suicides, the FBI said.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has created a free service, "Take it Down," which is meant to help victims of sextortion erase explicit images of victims or get bad actors to stop sharing them online. The tool can be accessed at https://takeitdown.ncmec.org.
