The Nigerian brothers were extradited from Lagos to the United States in August 2023 over their sextortion activities that caused a minor's death.
A US court in Marquette, Michigan, has sentenced two Nigerian brothers to 17 and half years imprisonment for blackmailing a minor to the point of committing suicide in an elaborate sextortion scam.
Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, both of Lagos, Nigeria, were said to have targeted over 100 victims, including 11 minors.
The convicts used fake social media profiles to trick their victims to take and share sexually explicit images of themselves. They then blackmailed the victims by threatening to disclose the collages of the images to the families, friends, and classmates of the victims unless the victims agreed to pay money using online cash applications.
A 17-year-old high school student, Jordan DeMay, of Marquette, Michigan, died on 22 March 2022 as a result of the sextortion scheme, the US Department of State said in a statement on Thursday.
In November 2022, the US government charged Ogoshi brothers and Ezekiel Robert, all Nigerian nationals, in the sextortion scheme that resulted in Jordan;s death. The brothers were extradited to the US in August 2023 and pleaded guilty in April.
The third defendant, Ezekiel Robert, has yet to be extradited from Nigeria, prosecutors said. On 21 March, a Nigerian court ordered him to be extradited to the US. He appealed that decision.
The US Attorney General Merrick Garland hailed the sentencing of the Ogoshis in a statement on the website of the Public Affairs office of the US Department of Justice on Thursday.
"Today's sentencing of Samuel and Samson Ogoshi sends a thundering message. These defendants sexually exploited and extorted more than 100 victims, including at least eleven minors, resulting in the tragic death of a 17-year-old high school student."These sentences should serve as a warning that the perpetrators of online sexual exploitation and extortion cannot escape accountability for their heinous crimes by hiding behind their phones and computers. The Justice Department will find them, no matter where they are, and we will bring them to justice in the United States," Mr Garland said.
How it happened
The US government said Samuel and Samson Ogoshi engaged in a scheme while living in Nigeria to sexually exploit more than 100 victims, including at least 11 identified minor victims.
They did this by purchasing hacked social media accounts and used them to pose as young women, making fake profiles and using the messaging feature on the social media accounts to contact victims.
They conducted online research about their victims to learn where they lived, attended school, worked, and the identities of their family and friends.
They then asked their minor victims to produce sexually explicit images of themselves. Once they received the images, they created a collage of pictures that included the sexually explicit image with other images of the victim and their school, family, and friends.
The Ogoshi brothers threatened to disclose the collages to the family, friends, and classmates of the victim unless the victim agreed to pay money using online cash applications.
They established a connection with Jordan DeMay, 17, on Instagram appearing to be a pretty girl and using the scheme, extorted hundreds of dollars from him.
BBC reported that the Ogoshis continued to demand money which made Jordan tell them that he would kill his life if they did not stop the blackmail. "Good. Do that fast or I'll make you do it," they texted him.
Six hours later, the young schoolboy took his own life in his bedroom.
The Ogoshis pleaded guilty to the crime after their extradition to the US and brought before a federal court in Michigan.
"I am sorry to the family. We made a bad decision to make money and I wish I could change that," one of the brothers muttered in the court.
Before judgement
The defence counsel raised an argument in favour of the Nigerian brothers, saying that they were under the influence of drug abuse while the federal prosecutors affirmed its position that the accused are guilty.
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Jennifer Buta and John DeMay, the parents of the deceased, also provided emotional statements about the devastation and sad nightmares of their son occasioned by the tragedy.
Delivering judgement, the court ruled that the convicts' inaction exhibits a "callous disregard for life", especially given they continued to trail and target other victims despite being aware that one of their victims has died.
The brothers were each sentenced to 210 months (17 and half years) in prison and five years of supervised release.
In January, Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a US-based cyber-social threats company, exposed a web of Nigerian social media accounts sharing tips, scripts and other information on financial sextortion. Checks show that most of these accounts feature visual contents in Nigerian Pidgin English dialect.
