A Michigan judge on Thursday sentenced Nigerian brothers Samuel and Samson Ogoshi to serve 17½ years in prison for their respective roles in a sextortion scheme that victimized 100 individuals and led to Michigan teenager Jordan DeMay’s suicide in 2022.
“I think, at the end of the day, this case is a testament to what we can do as a country and put some validity to what’s really happening online to young people,” Jordan’s father, John DeMay, told Fox News Digital. “It shows people that [sextortion] is real. I think that’s the most important part of the sentence. That was the last piece of this puzzle … that says, ‘Hey, this is a legitimate claim.’”
U.S. District Judge Robert J. Jonker handed down the decision Thursday morning, marking the first time in the nation’s history that Nigerian sextortion scammers have been extradited to the United States and sentenced to prison, the FBI confirmed to Fox News Digital.
“Today’s sentencing of Samuel and Samson Ogoshi sends a thundering message,” U.S. Attorney Mark Totten for the Western District of Michigan said in a statement Thursday. “To criminals who commit these schemes: You are not immune from justice. We will track you down and hold you accountable, even if we have to go half-way around the world to do so. The day when you could commit these crimes, rake in easy cash, destroy lives, and escape justice is gone.”
Sextortion is a social media crime trend in which bad actors trick victims, many of them minors, to engage in sexual acts or send blackmail money, according to the FBI.
Totten pleaded with parents, teenagers and “everyone who uses a cellphone” to “please be careful.”
“Don’t assume people are who they say they are,” Totten added. “Don’t share compromising images. And if you’re a victim, please reach out. There’s help, and law enforcement stands ready.”
Jordan DeMay was 17 years old in March 2022, when Samuel Ogoshi, now 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, both of Lagos, Nigeria, worked together to pose as a woman on Instagram using a hacked account and strike up a conversation with the teenager, ultimately blackmailing him into sending money and threatening him for more until he took his own life in March 2022.
The same night the Ogoshis started communicating with Jodan through Instagram, the teenager sent an explicit photo of himself to the account that he thought belonged to a woman.
