Nigerian Brothers Jailed in US for Teen Sex Scam

 

Two Nigerian brothers who targeted a 17-year-old girl in a sex scam have been sentenced to 17 years and six months in prison in the United States.

The Ogoshi brothers, from Lagos, convinced Jordan DeMay to send them explicit images, posing as a girl his age, in order to blackmail him.

He committed suicide less than six hours after he started speaking out on Instagram.

This is the first successful prosecution of Nigerians for sextortion in the United States, where it is a rapidly growing cybercrime, often linked to Nigeria.

Jordan’s mother, Jenn Buta, showed photos of her son in court and cried as she read a victim impact statement. “I’m broken to the core,” she said.

He welcomed the conclusion of the trial, but said this tragic case had not had a positive outcome.

Jordan DeMay was a very popular student at Michigan.
Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, sent him a friend request on Instagram pretending to be a pretty girl his age and then flirted with him.

After receiving explicit images of the teenager, they blackmailed him for hundreds of dollars, threatening to share the photos online with his friends if he didn’t comply.

Jordan sent as much money as he could and warned the scammers that he would commit suicide if they released the images.

The criminals replied: “Good… Do it quickly, otherwise I will force you to do it.”

John DeMay told a federal court in Marquette, Michigan, that he still has nightmares after finding his son dead in his bedroom. He said his family was forced to move to escape the memory.

The brothers pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to sexually exploit teenage boys in Michigan and across the United States.
Thirty-eight other U.S. victims targeted by the men were also identified. Thirteen of them were minors.

Their defense lawyers said the brothers’ crimes were fueled by drug abuse and Nigeria’s sex scam culture.

The judge said the crimes demonstrated a “callous disregard for life,” especially considering they continued to target other victims after learning of Jordan’s death.

Both brothers apologized to Jordan’s family.

“I feel sorry for the family. We made a bad decision to make money and I wish I could change that,” Samson Ogoshi said.

In the first case of its kind, US police tracked down the criminals in Lagos last summer and successfully extradited them to stand trial.

Nigerian Police Police portraits of Samuel and Samson Ogoshi, with neutral expressions, wearing white t-shirtsNigerian Police
Samuel and Samson Ogoshi
Another Nigerian linked to Jordan’s death and other cases is fighting extradition.

Speaking to the BBC in May from Jordan’s family home in the city of Marquette, Jordan’s mother praised police for their work in tracking down sex offenders.

But he said he had mixed feelings about the Ogoshis’ detention.

“It’s a relief to know that someone is being held accountable, but nothing good will come out of this situation for my family or the families of those responsible,” he said.

“I miss my son more than I can describe to you, but the mother of those men probably misses her two sons right now, too. She too is just an innocent bystander to the crime of sextortion,” Jenn Buta said.

Researchers and law enforcement officials point to Nigeria as one of the hotbeds of this type of crime.

In April, two Nigerian men were arrested after an Australian student committed suicide.
Two more men are on trial in Lagos after the suicides of a 15-year-old boy in the United States and a 14-year-old in Canada.

Nigerian authorities are also working with Police Scotland to investigate the case of 16-year-old Murray Dowey, who committed suicide in December.

In January, the U.S.-based tech firm Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) highlighted a network of Nigerian TikTok, YouTube, and Scribd accounts sharing sextortion tips and scripts. Many of the threads and videos are in the Nigerian Pidgin dialect.

Adedeji Oyenuga, a cybersecurity professor at Lagos State University, says he hopes news of the Nigerians’ convictions will reach criminals and deter them.

“The Ogoshis case has already sent a negative signal. I hear from the street that it is having an effect and it may not stop criminals from engaging in these crimes, but it will probably reduce the numbers,” he said.

The U.S. government is examining airline frequent flyer programs

There has also been an increase in the number of local victims and Professor Oyenuga says the Nigerian police have had some success in cracking down on criminals.

This is not the first time that a segment of Nigeria’s young, tech-savvy population has been caught up in a new wave of cybercrime.

The term “Yahoo Boys” is used to describe a segment of the population that uses cybercrime to make a living. It originates from the wave of scam emails from the Nigerian prince in the early 2000s that spread through Yahoo’s email service.

Dr Tombari Sibe, of cybersecurity firm Digital Footprints Nigeria, says cyber fraud such as sextortion has become the norm among the country’s youth, but he hopes news of the Ogoshis’ conviction will spread quickly.

“They see cybercrime as a bloodless crime, with potentially lucrative financial rewards. This case needs to receive enough coverage to show these young people that sextortion can lead to loss of life and lengthy prison sentences,” he said. [BBC]

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