Nigerian brothers jailed for US boy's sextortion death

Two brothers from Nigeria who targeted a 17-year-old in a sextortion scam have been sentenced to 17 years and six months in jail in the US. The Ogoshi brothers, from Lagos, lured Jordan DeMay into sending them explicit images by pretending to be a girl his age, and then blackmailed him. He killed himself less than six hours after they started talking on Instagram. BBC News reports that it is the first successful prosecution of Nigerians for sextortion in the US, where it is a rapidly growing cybercrime, often linked to Nigeria. Samuel Ogoshi and Samson Ogoshi sent Jordan a friend request on Instagram pretending to be a pretty girl his age and then flirted with him. Once they received explicit images from the teenager, they blackmailed him for hundreds of dollars, threatening to share the pictures online with his friends if he did not comply. Jordan sent as much money as he could and warned the scammers that he would kill himself if they spread the images. The criminals replied: ‘Good… Do that fast, or I'll make you do it.’

The brothers pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to sexually exploit teenage boys in Michigan and across the US. Thirty-eight other US victims were also identified as being targeted by the men, the BBC News report says. Thirteen of them were minors. Their defence attorneys said the brothers' crimes were fuelled by drug abuse and the sextortion scam culture in Nigeria. The judge said the crimes showed a ‘callous disregard for life’, especially given they continued targeting other victims after learning that Jordan has died. In the first case of its kind, US police tracked the criminals to Lagos last summer and successfully extradited them for trial. Another Nigerian linked to Jordan’s death and other cases is fighting extradition.