“We often see that victims in such cases are driven to extremes and even decide to commit suicide. The commission of such acts is calculated and ruthless. This is something that can be severely condemned against the suspect.” The Public Prosecution Service suspects a 28-year-old man from Groningen of having made at least eighteen victims in a sextortion case. The sentence demanded today in court in Zutphen: an unconditional prison sentence of 3 years.
The method was always the same: the suspect approached people via a dating app, then moved to WhatsApp. He then indicated that he would be underage, searched for his victims on social media, and subsequently blackmailed them by demanding money and/or recharge cards; otherwise, he would unmask his victims. “He actually did this by posting messages on Facebook,” said the Public Prosecution Service.
The public prosecutor: “And that can have a very disruptive influence. The suspect consciously and cleverly tracked down personal information of victims and figured out which victims he could pressure into paying him with success. He made them vulnerable by getting them to share erotic texts and photos with him and grossly abused this. The only goal of the extortion was to make money at the expense of the victims.”
During a search last July, two phones and a laptop were seized. On those data carriers, the police found several thousand files related to the dating app. According to the Public Prosecution Service, it shows that the man from Groningen is guilty of (sexual) extortion. It can also be deduced that, in addition to the eighteen individuals who ultimately filed a report, he likely made more victims.
The public prosecutor today during the justification of the sentence demanded: “We see a significant increase in digitized crime in the Netherlands, including sextortion cases. Behind every case of sextortion lies a victim, on whom the extortion can have a disruptive influence. And this case is no exception.”