The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office is warning teenagers to be careful who they talk to online following a weekend sextortion case. Chief Deputy Ben Houchin says a teenager befriended someone believed to be a 16-year-old girl on Instagram on Sunday.
“During the course of their chatting, the teenager was manipulated into sending nude photos .” Houchin says the scammer threatened to send the photos to the teen’s friends unless they sent money to them on Apple gift cards.
Houchin says fortunately the ten alerted a parent and no money was lost. He says the scammer tried to contact the victim again and was not concerned when told that deputies were at the home conducting their investigation.
“We’ve had several of these calls and we have come out and really stressed to parents of teenagers and teenagers to not send nude photos to anyone,” Houchin said.