Special Agent William Scullin Discusses Financially Motivated Sextortion
William Scullin, a special agent in the FBI Child Exploitation Operational Unit, discusses a financially motivated sextortion operation in Nigeria. The joint international operation targeted suspects whose crimes occurred in at least three countries and led to multiple deaths by suicides, including more than 20 in the U.S. since 2021.
Video Transcript
Nigeria faces a lot of challenges there. Overall, it's an extremely poor country. There are not a lot of education and job opportunities compared to the United States. So in a lot of cases we're seeing during these interviews that these subjects are doing these types of activities, these schemes, to make money.
And it's quite tragic because on one hand, you have an individual here who is trying to make money to survive, but they're causing, in some cases a loss of life in our country. So, during my interviews, I like to explain, as you said, the magnitude of their actions. And I think that goes a long way. For instance, in one particular interview that I did, this subject, the individual, they seemed to get fairly emotional and almost teared up. So I don't think they quite understand the effect that they're having on these children.
So, I’m, during my interviews I take that opportunity to get that message out, knowing that they'll probably talk to other coconspirators or friends that are also conducting fraudulent schemes, knowing that if they participate in these schemes, if they're involved in these schemes, the FBI is going to come for you
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