The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Department is issuing a warning to parents and their children after two teenage boys were recently targeted in a sextortion scheme. Chief Deputy Ben Houchin says the cases were reported in Hickman and Malcolm.
“They get contacted on Instagram by people they don’t know and they end up asking them to go to a different format. The conversation turns sexual and the boys end up taking explicit photos of themselves.”
Houchin says once the photos are sent, the teens will be told to send money or they will be released. “It’s not good to send anyone naked pictures, but especially people you don’t know. There is a revenge porn law that we have in Nebraska, but the problem is a lot of these are out of the country and there’s not a thing we can do.”
Houchin says in some cases teens pay money but are blackmailed into sending more. He says there have been cases nationally where teens end up committing suicide because of the embarrassment.
“Once you send something out on social media it’s out there for everybody and there’s no getting it back,” Houchin says. “We just want to make sure people know and really think about it.”