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

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

"Any individual reached out to him pretending to be a woman, and so they started a conversation," his mom, Pauline Stuart, instructed CNN, preventing again tears as she described what happened to her son days after she and Ryan had completed visiting a number of faculties he was contemplating attending after graduating highschool.

The web dialog quickly grew intimate, after which turned felony.

The scammer -- posing as a younger girl -- sent Ryan a nude picture and then requested Ryan to share an express image of himself in return. Immediately after Ryan shared an intimate photo of his own, the cybercriminal demanded $5,000, threatening to make the picture public and ship it to Ryan's household and pals.

The San Jose, California, teen told the cybercriminal he couldn't pay the full amount, and the demand was in the end lowered to a fraction of the original determine -- $150. However after paying the scammers from his faculty savings, Stuart stated, "They saved demanding an increasing number of and putting a number of continued pressure on him."

At the time, Stuart knew none of what her son was experiencing. She realized the small print after law enforcement investigators reconstructed the occasions main as much as his dying.

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

"He really, really thought in that point that there wasn't a strategy to get by if these footage had been really posted online," Pauline said. "His note showed he was absolutely terrified. No little one should must be that scared."

Law 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 have been over 18,000 sextortion-related complaints in 2021, with losses in excess of $13 million. The FBI says the use of child 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 criminal that particularly targets children -- it's one of the more deeper violations of belief I believe in society," says FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dan Costin, who leads a group of investigators working to counter crimes towards youngsters.

In line with Costin, many 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 legislation enforcement counterparts all over the world, Costin stated, to help identify and arrest perpetrators who are focusing on kids online.

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

"The embarrassment piece of this is in all probability one of the larger hurdles that the victims have to overcome," mentioned Costin. "It may be lots, particularly in that second."

However investigators urge victims to quickly contact regulation enforcement, either online or at their local FBI discipline workplace.

Medical experts say there's a key reason why younger males are particularly vulnerable to sextortion-related scams.

"Teen brains are nonetheless growing," mentioned Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent medication at Mass Basic in Boston. "So when one thing catastrophic happens, like a private picture is launched to people on-line, it's onerous for them to look past that moment and perceive that in the huge scheme of things they're going to be capable of get by means of this."

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

"A very powerful thing that a guardian ought to do with their teen is try to understand what they're doing online," she mentioned. "You wish to know when they're going surfing, who they're interacting with, what platforms they're using. Are they being approached by people who they do not know, are they experiencing strain to share info or images?"

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

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

Ryan's mother agrees.

"You should talk to your youngsters as a result of we need to make them conscious of it," Stuart mentioned.

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

"How may these individuals look at themselves in the mirror realizing that $150 is extra important than a toddler's life?" she says. "There isn't any different phrase however 'evil' for me that they care way more about money than a child's life. I do not need anybody else to undergo what we did."