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

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

"Any person reached out to him pretending to be a lady, and so they started a dialog," his mother, Pauline Stuart, instructed CNN, preventing again tears as she described what occurred to her son days after she and Ryan had completed visiting several schools he was contemplating attending after graduating high school.

The online conversation rapidly grew intimate, and then turned legal.

The scammer -- posing as a young woman -- sent Ryan a nude photograph and then requested Ryan to share an explicit image of himself in return. Immediately after Ryan shared an intimate picture of his own, the cybercriminal demanded $5,000, threatening to make the photo public and ship it to Ryan's family and associates.

The San Jose, California, teen informed the cybercriminal he could not pay the complete quantity, and the demand was ultimately lowered to a fraction of the original determine -- $150. However after paying the scammers from his faculty savings, Stuart mentioned, "They kept demanding increasingly and placing numerous continued stress on him."

On the time, Stuart knew none of what her son was experiencing. She discovered the main points after regulation enforcement investigators reconstructed the events leading as much as his demise.

She had said goodnight to Ryan at 10 p.m., and described him as her often completely happy son. By 2 a.m., he had been scammed, and taken his life. Ryan left behind a suicide word describing how embarrassed he was for himself and the household.

"He actually, truly thought in that time that there wasn't a option to get by if those photos have been actually posted on-line," Pauline mentioned. "His word showed he was completely terrified. No youngster should must be that scared."

Regulation enforcement calls the scam "sextortion," and investigators have seen an explosion in complaints from victims main the FBI to ramp up a marketing campaign to warn dad and mom from coast to coast.

The bureau says there were 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 serious crime.

The investigation into Final's case is ongoing, Stuart and the FBI tell CNN.

"To be a criminal that specifically targets children -- it's one of the more deeper violations of trust I feel in society," says FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dan Costin, who leads a team of investigators working to counter crimes against children.

In keeping with Costin, most 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 world wide, Costin said, to help determine and arrest perpetrators who're targeting kids on-line.

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

"The embarrassment piece of that is probably one of the larger hurdles that the victims have to beat," stated Costin. "It can be lots, particularly in that moment."

However investigators urge victims to shortly contact legislation enforcement, both online or at their local FBI area office.

Medical consultants say there's a key reason why younger males are particularly vulnerable to sextortion-related scams.

"Teen brains are nonetheless developing," mentioned Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent medicine at Mass Normal in Boston. "So when something catastrophic occurs, like a personal picture is released to individuals on-line, it is laborious for them to look past that second and perceive that within the huge scheme of issues they'll be able to get via this."

Hadland said there are steps dad and mom can take to assist safeguard their youngsters from on-line hurt.

"An important thing that a parent ought to do with their teen is attempt to understand what they're doing online," she stated. "You want to know once they're going surfing, who they're interacting with, what platforms they're using. Are they being approached by those that they don't know, are they experiencing pressure to share info or pictures?"

Hadland said it's also crucial 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 have performed something, or they really feel like they've made a mistake," he stated.

Ryan's mother agrees.

"It's essential to talk to your kids as a result of we need to make them conscious of it," Stuart stated.

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

"How may these individuals take a look at themselves in the mirror understanding that $150 is extra vital than a child's life?" she says. "There's no other phrase but 'evil' for me that they care way more about money than a baby's life. I do not need anybody else to undergo what we did."