New York Criminal Lawyer Blog
In two back-to-back cases involving extorters blackmailing their targets from outside New York State, one of whom was abroad, Saland Law’s Jeremy Saland, along with Sage Intelligence Group’s Herman Weisberg, shut down callously selfish harassers from syphoning more money from our clients after these victims wizened up and retained the “‘A-Team’ of ex-lawmen extracting victims from blackmail ploys”. Beyond putting an end to their thieving ways, both bad guys, yes, men posing as women, licked their wounds and profusely apologized for the error of their ways after being ferreted out from their wrongfully presumed shadowed corner of the internet. Very simply, upon being confronted with the grave consequences of their actions no matter where they hid, these men made it overwhelmingly clear, and repeatedly so, that their threats and demands were no more.
Man Poses as High-End Online Escort
Some escort sites catering to clientele with financial means, or those fronting as such to merely scam their prey, seek to verify would be intimate partners before agreeing to any services. Setting aside the fact that verifying with a credit card, passport, or drivers license is incredibly foolish for countless reasons, some men, blinded by visions of sexual exploits, eagerly share their personal identifying information and pictures, such as the classic “finger to nose” shot, with their future blackmailer. While some see this verification process as proof of a provider’s legitimacy, it is anything but that. Instead of using the pedigree and identification to corroborate a would-be John is not law enforcement, for example, these sextorters instead use this personal identification information as a knife to bleed their targets of money. What makes their ability to do so that much easier is that these blackmailers arm themselves with information about that person’s family, career, and social, personal, and business networks once they have all the identifiers and access necessary to follow through with their threats.
Despite promises of a one-time multi-thousand-dollar payment in return for not humiliating and exposing our client, the blackmailer unsurprisingly demanded additional thousands of dollars. In an effort to break down our client, the online harasser namedropped our client’s employer and spouse, and offered up other personal information before threatening to call and email family members and business associates. Although panicked by the unrelenting threats, our client put on his “big boy pants” and followed our instructions in order to change the power dynamic to his advantage. Upon doing so, Jeremy, in possession of the fruits of our investigation revealing the “woman’s” identity and critical financial information associated with “her” banks and service providers, communicated directly with the blackmailer through WhatsApp to turn the table. After some initial chest pounding and false bravado, the former bully ultimately retreated, repeatedly apologized, and promised to stop extorting our client.
Seeking.Com “Sugar Baby” Far More a “Daddy”
In a similar scenario to the above, a client met a “baby” on SeekingArrangement.Com – a site we are quite familiar with from numerous past sextortions. After some explicit sexting from his real phone number and sending the time-tested scammer’s verification request of, you got it, a selfie with a finger to the nose, the purported “sugar baby” demanded $10,000. If our client failed to pay, the extorter, through a barrage of messages, made it clear he would send the sexts and image to our client’s employer. After paying $10,000 with the understanding that this would be the sextorter’s only demand before going on “her” way, our client quickly learned what we had previously told him before he secured our services – his stalker was anything but done and was a glutton for the mighty dollar.
Similar to the first matter, Jeremy and Herman advised our client how to respond – or not respond – to the online predator in order to change the balance of power. Turning the cat more into a mouse and armed with a bank account number, phone numbers from England, Hong Kong, and elsewhere, and social media intel, among other things, Jeremy reached out to our client’s “baby” on WhatsApp. Although first claiming we had the wrong person and that he knew nothing about an extortion, the blackmailer began “blowing up” Jeremy’s phone upon being advised of our next steps before simply being ignored or told that since he was the wrong guy there was no need to speak further. Realizing the game was over upon being confronted with our investigation and facing the reality of exposure along with the very real collateral problems that would follow him for the foreseeable future, the fraudster confessed and acknowledged greed had led him astray. In the end, the abuser promised not to contact our client ever again and even sent his picture in real time as confirmation that he closed the book on this scheme.
Don’t be a Victim to Sextortion & Blackmail
Having successfully shutdown sextorters and blackmailers across the United States and abroad from New York to California and England to the Philippines with boots on the ground, cease-and-desist memoranda, and communications with financial institutions and prosecutors when necessary, Saland Law knows that once an ex-affair, former lover, on or offline escort, sugar baby, or other extorter burrows him or herself into your life, the fear and anxiety of irreparable harm is overwhelming. Whether it is $2,500.00, $100,000.00, or far more today, these thieves will not stop demanding money days, weeks, or even years later until when, and if, you summon the courage to stand tall.
Don’t let an extorter decimate your life as you know it (and don’t take a selfie with your finger to your nose).
To learn more about protection from and putting an end to Extortion, Blackmail, Sextortion, Stalking, and Harassment in all its forms while also maintaining your anonymity, follow the links above or contact Saland Law directly.