US court in Marquette, Michigan, has sentenced two Nigerian brothers to 17 and half years imprisonment for blackmailing a minor to the point of committing suicide in an elaborate sextortion scam.
Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, both of Lagos, Nigeria, were said to have targeted over 100 victims, including 11 minors.
The convicts used fake social media profiles to trick their victims to take and share sexually explicit images of themselves.
They then blackmailed the victims by threatening to disclose the collages of the images to the families, friends, and classmates of the victims unless the victims agreed to pay money using online cash applications.
A 17-year-old high school student, Jordan DeMay, of Marquette, Michigan, died on 22 March 2022 as a result of the sextortion scheme, the US Department of State said in a statement on Thursday.
In November 2022, the US government charged Ogoshi brothers and Ezekiel Robert, all Nigerian nationals, in the sextortion scheme that resulted in Jordan;s death. The brothers were extradited to the US in August 2023 and pleaded guilty in April.
The third defendant, Ezekiel Robert, has yet to be extradited from Nigeria, prosecutors said. On 21 March, a Nigerian court ordered him to be extradited to the US. He appealed that decision.
The US Attorney General Merrick Garland hailed the sentencing of the Ogoshis in a statement on the website of the Public Affairs office of the US Department of Justice on Thursday.
