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

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

"Anyone reached out to him pretending to be a girl, and so they began a dialog," his mother, Pauline Stuart, informed CNN, fighting again tears as she described what happened to her son days after she and Ryan had completed visiting several colleges he was contemplating attending after graduating highschool.

The online conversation rapidly grew intimate, after which turned felony.

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

The San Jose, California, teen told the cybercriminal he couldn't pay the full quantity, and the demand was in the end lowered to a fraction of the original determine -- $150. But after paying the scammers from his school financial savings, Stuart stated, "They saved demanding increasingly and placing plenty of continued stress on him."

At the time, Stuart knew none of what her son was experiencing. She learned the small print after regulation enforcement investigators reconstructed the events main up to his dying.

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

"He actually, really thought in that point that there wasn't a option to get by if those pictures were really posted online," Pauline said. "His note confirmed he was absolutely terrified. No baby should must be that scared."

Legislation enforcement calls the rip-off "sextortion," and investigators have seen an explosion in complaints from victims leading the FBI to ramp up a campaign to warn mother and father from coast to coast.

The bureau says there have been over 18,000 sextortion-related complaints in 2021, with losses in extra 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 tell CNN.

"To be a felony that specifically targets youngsters -- it's one of many extra deeper violations of belief I feel in society," says FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dan Costin, who leads a crew of investigators working to counter crimes against children.

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 assist identify and arrest perpetrators who are targeting youngsters online.

One challenge for the FBI: many victims of sextortion don't report the incidents to law enforcement.

"The embarrassment piece of this is most likely one of many greater hurdles that the victims have to overcome," said Costin. "It may be rather a lot, particularly in that second."

However investigators urge victims to quickly contact legislation enforcement, both online or at their local FBI subject workplace.

Medical consultants say there is a key reason why younger males are particularly susceptible to sextortion-related scams.

"Teen brains are still creating," stated Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent medicine at Mass Common in Boston. "So when one thing catastrophic occurs, like a private image is released to people online, it's hard for them to look past that moment and perceive that within the large scheme of issues they're going to be capable to get through this."

Hadland stated there are steps mother and father can take to assist safeguard their kids from on-line harm.

"The most important factor that a guardian should do with their teen is try to perceive what they're doing on-line," she mentioned. "You want to know when they're going online, who they're interacting with, what platforms they're utilizing. Are they being approached by those that they don't know, are they experiencing stress to share data or photos?"

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

"You want to make it clear that they can speak to you if they've done something, or they feel like they've made a mistake," he said.

Ryan's mother agrees.

"You need to talk to your kids as a result of we have to make them conscious of it," Stuart mentioned.

Nonetheless grieving the loss of her son, she is channeling her family's pain 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 take a look at themselves in the mirror knowing that $150 is more necessary than a baby's life?" she says. "There is not any different word however 'evil' for me that they care much more about money than a baby's life. I don't want anybody else to go through what we did."