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Online sextortion scheme
Police said people should be very careful about who they friend online.
ATHENS, Ga. - A woman blackmailed an Athens man she met online in an attempt to get hundreds of dollars from the victim, police said.
Athens-Clarke County police are investigating it as extortion and said their interaction likely tainted the man's reputation.
With many "normal" activities shut down due to the pandemic, many people are finding their entertainment online.
"Obviously, that could play a role in this guy's decision to engage," Lt. Shaun Barnett said.
Authorities said people should be cautious of anyone they don’t know in real life-- especially those who reach out on social media.
Police said the victim didn't realize he was falling victim to extortion when he accepted a young woman's Facebook friend request.
The young woman said she was from the Dominican Republic and police said the two spoke online for some time.
Eventually, police said the woman recorded the man performing a sexual act over a video call.
Investigators said he consented to the sexual act, but not the recording. A short time later, she edited a child into the video and threatened to send it to the man's family and friends if he refused to send hundreds of dollars.
At that point, he reached out to the police.
"I want to caution people from accepting friend requests from people you don't know in real life and engaging in these kinds of acts with people you don't and don't know what their intentions are," Lt. Barnett said.
The man refused to pay up, so the woman sent the edited video to the man's Facebook friends.
"At which point, friends started questioning him because, as I mentioned, the video was manipulated to show something that didn't really happen," he said.
Athens-Clarke County police said the man even tried contacting authorities in the Dominican Republic, where the woman said she was from.
"I caution people against working with people internationally because it's so hard to tell if the person you're dealing with on the other end of the line was an actual authority," Lt. Barnett said.
As of right now, a suspect is not in custody, but some of that man's closest connections saw him in a way they'd likely never seen him before.
"It's a very unfortunate situation, I imagine very embarrassing to him," Barnett said.
Investigators said they don't have any leads as to who the woman might be. They said it's difficult to track these perpetrators down, as they could be in another country. Anyone with information that could lead to an arrest, give the police a call.
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