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

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

"Somebody reached out to him pretending to be a lady, and they started a conversation," his mom, Pauline Stuart, advised CNN, combating again tears as she described what happened to her son days after she and Ryan had completed visiting several faculties he was considering attending after graduating highschool.

The net dialog rapidly grew intimate, and then turned prison.

The scammer -- posing as a young woman -- sent Ryan a nude picture and then requested Ryan to share an express picture of himself in return. Instantly after Ryan shared an intimate photograph of his own, the cybercriminal demanded $5,000, threatening to make the photo public and send it to Ryan's household and pals.

The San Jose, California, teen told the cybercriminal he could not pay the full quantity, and the demand was in the end lowered to a fraction of the unique determine -- $150. But after paying the scammers from his college financial savings, Stuart mentioned, "They saved demanding increasingly and putting plenty of continued strain on him."

On the time, Stuart knew none of what her son was experiencing. She discovered the main points after regulation enforcement investigators reconstructed the occasions main up to his death.

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

"He really, truly thought in that time that there wasn't a way to get by if those footage were truly posted on-line," Pauline stated. "His word showed he was absolutely terrified. No little one should must be that scared."

Law enforcement calls the scam "sextortion," and investigators have seen an explosion in complaints from victims leading the FBI to ramp up a campaign to warn parents from coast to coast.

The bureau says there were over 18,000 sextortion-related complaints in 2021, with losses in excess of $13 million. The FBI says the usage of child 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 criminal that particularly targets children -- it is one of many more deeper violations of belief I feel in society," says FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dan Costin, who leads a workforce of investigators working to counter crimes against youngsters.

In response to Costin, many of the sextortion scams reported to the FBI are determined to be from criminals on the African continent and in Southeast Asia. Federal investigators are working with their legislation enforcement counterparts around the globe, Costin said, to help identify and arrest perpetrators who are focusing on children online.

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

"The embarrassment piece of this is in all probability one of the greater hurdles that the victims have to beat," said Costin. "It can be loads, especially in that second."

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

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

"Teen brains are still creating," stated Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent medicine at Mass Basic in Boston. "So when one thing catastrophic happens, like a private image is launched to people on-line, it is arduous for them to look past that second and perceive that within the massive scheme of issues they will have the ability to get by this."

Hadland stated there are steps mother and father can take to assist safeguard their children from online harm.

"Crucial factor that a guardian should do with their teen is try to understand what they're doing on-line," she stated. "You want to know when they're logging on, who they're interacting with, what platforms they're utilizing. Are they being approached by people that they don't know, are they experiencing stress to share info or photos?"

Hadland stated it's also crucial that oldsters specifically warn teens of scams like sextortion, with out shaming them.

"You want to make it clear that they'll talk to you if they've accomplished something, or they really feel like they've made a mistake," he stated.

Ryan's mother agrees.

"It's essential to discuss to your youngsters because we need to make them aware of it," Stuart said.

Still grieving the lack of her son, she is channeling her family's ache into motion, and honoring Ryan by speaking out and telling his story. She hopes that doing so will assist save lives.

"How could these folks look at themselves in the mirror knowing that $150 is extra essential than a baby's life?" she says. "There is no different phrase but 'evil' for me that they care much more about money than a child's life. I do not need anyone else to go through what we did."