Bluffton High student blackmailed by scammer over nude photo, Sherrif’s report says
Last week, a Bluffton High School student was pressured into sending an explicit photo of themselves to an unknown person on Snapchat and after, was told to pay the scammer if he didn’t want the photo released, a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office report says.
On Dec. 12 the student, who is a minor, paid $410 to the scammer, who hasn’t been identified.
The student was sent a Snapchat friend request and accepted it after he “noticed that he had multiple friends in common with the user.”
From there the student and the unknown user, “who presented themselves as a young female around his age,” began to text through Snapchat and the student “felt pressure by this user to send an explicit photo of himself.”
In return the student received a photo of an “unknown nude female,” but he never saved the photo. The report redacted how old the student said the user looked in the photo.
The student then received text messages instructing him to get a Zelle and Venmo account and send money to specified accounts, or “his explicit photo that he had sent would be sent to his friends.”
After the scammer sent proof they saved the photo, the student sent $10 to one of their money transfer accounts and $400 to another.
The scammer was unable to be identified. The phone number the student was contacted by is an Internet phone number and not connected to an actual phone, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
In addition to extortion and blackmail, the incident is also sexual exploitation of a minor in the 3rd degree. The student wants to press charges if the scammer is identified, according to the report.
Per policy, the Beaufort County School District does not comment on school disciplinary matters or law enforcement investigations, district spokesperson Candace Bruder said.
