A 17-year-old boy died by suicide hours after being scammed. The FBI says it is 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 woman, and they began a dialog," his mom, Pauline Stuart, advised CNN, fighting again tears as she described what occurred to her son days after she and Ryan had completed visiting several colleges he was contemplating attending after graduating high school.

The online dialog shortly grew intimate, after which turned prison.

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

The San Jose, California, teen advised the cybercriminal he could not pay the total amount, and the demand was finally lowered to a fraction of the original figure -- $150. However after paying the scammers from his faculty savings, Stuart mentioned, "They saved demanding more and more and placing a number of continued stress on him."

On the time, Stuart knew none of what her son was experiencing. She discovered the main points after regulation enforcement investigators reconstructed the events main as much as his death.

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

"He actually, truly thought in that time that there wasn't a method to get by if these pictures had been truly posted online," Pauline said. "His observe confirmed he was completely terrified. No youngster ought to must be that scared."

Legislation enforcement calls the scam "sextortion," and investigators have seen an explosion in complaints from victims leading the FBI to ramp up a campaign to warn dad and mom 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 also constitutes a severe crime.

The investigation into Last's case is ongoing, Stuart and the FBI tell CNN.

"To be a felony that particularly targets kids -- it is one of many more deeper violations of trust I feel in society," says FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dan Costin, who leads a workforce of investigators working to counter crimes in opposition to children.

Based on Costin, most of the sextortion scams reported to the FBI are decided to be from criminals on the African continent and in Southeast Asia. Federal investigators are working with their law enforcement counterparts around the world, Costin said, to help establish and arrest perpetrators who are concentrating on kids online.

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

"The embarrassment piece of this is in all probability one of many greater hurdles that the victims have to beat," mentioned Costin. "It may be quite a bit, particularly in that moment."

But investigators urge victims to quickly contact legislation enforcement, both on-line or at their local FBI field office.

Medical consultants say there's a key cause why younger males are particularly weak to sextortion-related scams.

"Teen brains are nonetheless growing," mentioned Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent drugs at Mass Common in Boston. "So when one thing catastrophic occurs, like a private picture is released to people online, it's onerous for them to look previous that second and perceive that within the huge scheme of issues they're going to be capable of get by this."

Hadland said there are steps mother and father can take to assist safeguard their kids from on-line hurt.

"The most important thing that a parent ought to do with their teen is attempt to perceive what they're doing on-line," she stated. "You want to know once they're going surfing, who they're interacting with, what platforms they're using. Are they being approached by folks that they don't know, are they experiencing pressure to share data or photographs?"

Hadland stated it's also vital that folks particularly warn teenagers of scams like sextortion, without shaming them.

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

Ryan's mother agrees.

"You must discuss to your children as a result of we have to make them aware of it," Stuart mentioned.

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

"How could these people have a look at themselves in the mirror figuring out that $150 is extra necessary than a toddler's life?" she says. "There isn't any other phrase however 'evil' for me that they care far more about money than a child's life. I don't want anyone else to go through what we did."