JEDDAH: Cyber security experts and researchers have confirmed that they have received many requests for help in dealing with extortion and blackmail.
The cases were so serious that some of the young men had tried to commit suicide.
Mohammed Al-Sariei, a security researcher, said that blackmail and extortion were greatly on the increase due to modern technology. “Most of the victims are young men using social networking sites such as Facebook and Skype,” he said.
He said that last year he had received 278 requests from young Saudi men who were subjected to extortion by girls from North Africa.
“The extortion was the result of indecent sexual chats recorded without the knowledge of the men,” he said. “They received threats of those recordings being made public on social media if they did not pay large amounts of money.
The girls threatened to publish the recordings on the accounts of their friends and relatives if the men did not pay and the men did not want to face a scandal.
Ahmad Al-Saad, a social worker, said blackmail and extortion cases involving men and women had spread widely because of of social media.
He told the story of one young man who had sought his help. “The man met the girl on Facebook and they exchanged letters. Then the girl asked for his Skype account and they communicated by both audio and video. Apparently their chat went to indecent sexual talk and then suddenly the girl stopped communicating with him.
“He was surprised when he later received an indecent video of him with the girl. He was shocked and closed his account but she had already stolen his profile and created a new account using his name with his photo.
“She then threatened to send the video to everybody he knew unless he sent her SR5,000. Further investigations showed the account owner was not a girl but a man from a North African country. The total sum of the money transferred amounted to SR10,000. It was a total nightmare for the guy.”
The social worker said young men from the Gulf and Saudi Arabia are more liable to be blackmailed because of their conservative communities and because they have money. “The girls are only after their money,” he said.
Abdul Aziz Al-Shunaifi, a family affairs consultant, said young Saudi men should be educated to use social media correctly and not to seek gratification of indecent desires and actions which may have grave consequences that may affect them psychologically, socially and within their own family.
Mohammed Al-Otaibi, a lawyer, said Article 3 of the Penal Code provides for the punishment of whomever posted an online registration for the purpose of defamation with prison for a term not exceeding one year or a fine of more than SR500,000, or both.
“If the documentation of the recording was done skillfully and professionally, the prison term will be up to 5 years and the fine will be SR3 million,” he explained.
Source: ArabNews
