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

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

"Any individual reached out to him pretending to be a lady, and they started a conversation," his mother, Pauline Stuart, advised CNN, fighting again tears as she described what occurred to her son days after she and Ryan had completed visiting several schools he was considering attending after graduating highschool.

The net conversation quickly grew intimate, after which turned felony.

The scammer -- posing as a younger lady -- sent Ryan a nude picture and then asked Ryan to share an specific picture of himself in return. Immediately after Ryan shared an intimate picture of his personal, the cybercriminal demanded $5,000, threatening to make the picture public and ship it to Ryan's family and mates.

The San Jose, California, teen instructed the cybercriminal he could not pay the total quantity, and the demand was ultimately lowered to a fraction of the unique determine -- $150. But after paying the scammers from his faculty financial savings, Stuart stated, "They kept demanding increasingly more and placing a lot of continued strain on him."

At the time, Stuart knew none of what her son was experiencing. She realized the details after law enforcement investigators reconstructed the occasions leading up to his dying.

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

"He really, really thought in that time that there wasn't a approach to get by if these photos have been truly posted on-line," Pauline said. "His observe confirmed he was absolutely terrified. No child should need to be that scared."

Law enforcement calls the rip-off "sextortion," and investigators have seen an explosion in complaints from victims leading the FBI to ramp up a campaign to warn parents from coast to coast.

The bureau says there have been over 18,000 sextortion-related complaints in 2021, with losses in excess of $13 million. The FBI says the usage of baby pornography by criminals to lure suspects also constitutes a severe crime.

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

"To be a legal that specifically targets kids -- it's one of the 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 against youngsters.

In keeping with 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 determine and arrest perpetrators who're focusing on youngsters online.

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

"The embarrassment piece of this is most likely one of the bigger hurdles that the victims have to beat," stated Costin. "It may be rather a lot, particularly in that second."

But investigators urge victims to rapidly contact law enforcement, both online or at their local FBI field workplace.

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

"Teen brains are nonetheless developing," mentioned Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent drugs at Mass Common in Boston. "So when one thing catastrophic occurs, like a personal picture is launched to individuals online, it's exhausting for them to look previous that moment and understand that within the big scheme of issues they're going to be capable of get by means of this."

Hadland stated there are steps mother and father can take to help safeguard their kids from on-line harm.

"The most important factor that a parent should do with their teen is try to understand what they're doing on-line," she said. "You need to know once they're going surfing, who they're interacting with, what platforms they're utilizing. Are they being approached by those that they do not know, are they experiencing strain to share data or photos?"

Hadland said it is also critical that oldsters specifically warn teenagers of scams like sextortion, without shaming them.

"You wish to make it clear that they'll talk to you if they have carried out something, or they really feel like they've made a mistake," he mentioned.

Ryan's mother agrees.

"You want to talk to your youngsters as a result of we have to make them aware of it," Stuart said.

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

"How may these people take a look at themselves within the mirror figuring out that $150 is extra vital than a child's life?" she says. "There is no different word however 'evil' for me that they care rather more about cash than a child's life. I do not want anyone else to undergo what we did."