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

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

"Any individual reached out to him pretending to be a girl, and so they began a conversation," his mom, Pauline Stuart, instructed CNN, combating again tears as she described what occurred to her son days after she and Ryan had completed visiting a number of colleges he was considering attending after graduating high school.

The web conversation quickly grew intimate, after which turned prison.

The scammer -- posing as a younger woman -- sent Ryan a nude photograph and then asked Ryan to share an explicit image of himself in return. Immediately after Ryan shared an intimate photograph of his own, the cybercriminal demanded $5,000, threatening to make the photograph public and send it to Ryan's household and pals.

The San Jose, California, teen advised the cybercriminal he could not pay the total amount, and the demand was finally lowered to a fraction of the unique determine -- $150. But after paying the scammers from his school financial savings, Stuart mentioned, "They stored demanding increasingly more and placing lots of continued strain on him."

At the time, Stuart knew none of what her son was experiencing. She realized the small print after law enforcement investigators reconstructed the occasions main as much as his death.

She had mentioned goodnight to Ryan at 10 p.m., and described him as her normally joyful 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 point that there wasn't a option to get by if these pictures have been actually posted online," Pauline stated. "His note showed he was completely terrified. No child 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 marketing campaign to warn parents 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 using little one pornography by criminals to lure suspects also constitutes a critical crime.

The investigation into Last's case is ongoing, Stuart and the FBI inform CNN.

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

In keeping with Costin, lots 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 law enforcement counterparts around the globe, Costin stated, to help establish and arrest perpetrators who're targeting children online.

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

"The embarrassment piece of that is in all probability one of the greater hurdles that the victims have to beat," mentioned Costin. "It may be rather a lot, particularly in that moment."

But investigators urge victims to shortly contact legislation enforcement, either on-line or at their local FBI field workplace.

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

"Teen brains are nonetheless developing," mentioned Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent medicine at Mass General in Boston. "So when something catastrophic happens, like a personal picture is released to individuals on-line, it's arduous for them to look past that moment and perceive that in the big scheme of things they will have the ability to get via this."

Hadland stated there are steps parents can take to assist safeguard their children from on-line harm.

"Crucial thing that a father or mother should do with their teen is attempt to understand what they're doing on-line," she stated. "You need to know after they're going online, who they're interacting with, what platforms they're using. Are they being approached by those that they do not know, are they experiencing strain to share data or pictures?"

Hadland stated it is also important that folks particularly warn teens of scams like sextortion, without shaming them.

"You want to make it clear that they will discuss to you if they've carried out something, or they feel like they've made a mistake," he mentioned.

Ryan's mother agrees.

"It's good to talk to your youngsters because we have to make them conscious of it," Stuart stated.

Still grieving the loss of her son, she is channeling her household's pain into action, and honoring Ryan by talking out and telling his story. She hopes that doing so will assist save lives.

"How might these folks take a look at themselves within the mirror figuring out that $150 is more vital than a baby's life?" she says. "There's no different word but 'evil' for me that they care way more about money than a baby's life. I don't need anyone else to go through what we did."