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

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

"Somebody reached out to him pretending to be a girl, and they began a dialog," his mom, Pauline Stuart, informed CNN, fighting back tears as she described what happened to her son days after she and Ryan had completed visiting a number of faculties he was considering attending after graduating highschool.

The online dialog quickly grew intimate, after which turned legal.

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

The San Jose, California, teen instructed the cybercriminal he could not pay the full amount, and the demand was in the end lowered to a fraction of the unique determine -- $150. But after paying the scammers from his faculty financial savings, Stuart stated, "They stored demanding more and more and putting plenty of continued pressure on him."

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

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

"He really, really thought in that time that there wasn't a method to get by if those footage were truly posted online," Pauline mentioned. "His observe showed he was absolutely terrified. No youngster should need to be that scared."

Regulation enforcement calls the scam "sextortion," and investigators have seen an explosion in complaints from victims main the FBI to ramp up a marketing 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 extra of $13 million. The FBI says the use of youngster pornography by criminals to lure suspects also constitutes a serious crime.

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

"To be a felony that specifically targets kids -- it's one of the more deeper violations of belief I think in society," says FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dan Costin, who leads a crew of investigators working to counter crimes against kids.

Based on Costin, lots 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 regulation enforcement counterparts around the world, Costin stated, to help identify and arrest perpetrators who're targeting kids online.

One problem for the FBI: many victims of sextortion do not report the incidents to regulation enforcement.

"The embarrassment piece of this is probably one of the bigger hurdles that the victims have to beat," mentioned Costin. "It can be a lot, especially in that moment."

However investigators urge victims to shortly contact law enforcement, both online or at their native FBI area workplace.

Medical experts say there's a key motive why young males are particularly weak to sextortion-related scams.

"Teen brains are nonetheless developing," mentioned Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent medication at Mass Basic in Boston. "So when one thing catastrophic occurs, like a personal image is released to people on-line, it is laborious for them to look past that moment and perceive that in the big scheme of issues they will have the ability to get via this."

Hadland stated there are steps parents can take to help safeguard their kids from on-line hurt.

"A very powerful factor that a guardian should do with their teen is attempt to perceive what they're doing on-line," she stated. "You want to know when they're going surfing, who they're interacting with, what platforms they're using. Are they being approached by people that they do not know, are they experiencing strain to share info or photos?"

Hadland said it is also vital that oldsters particularly warn teens of scams like sextortion, without shaming them.

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

Ryan's mom agrees.

"You'll want to discuss to your children as a result of we need to make them aware of it," Stuart stated.

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 folks have a look at themselves in the mirror knowing that $150 is more vital than a toddler's life?" she says. "There isn't any different word however 'evil' for me that they care much more about money than a baby's life. I do not need anyone else to go through what we did."