Blackmailed

Summary

Podcast Summary: Left To Their Own Devices

Episode 5: Blackmailed

Host: Ava Smithing (Toronto Star)
Date: October 17, 2025

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Brief Overview

“Blackmailed” explores the harrowing realities of online sextortion experienced by teenagers. Through the deeply personal account of “Sarah,” a Canadian teenager victimized by predators on social media, the episode draws parallels to the infamous Amanda Todd case, highlighting both personal trauma and structural failures in addressing digital exploitation. Ava Smithing delves into the effects of tech-fueled childhoods, the explosive rise of criminal sextortion, and the ongoing struggles of survivors and their advocates.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sarah’s Story: From Grief to Exploitation

• Strict Upbringing and Isolation (01:18–03:13)

  • Sarah reflects on strict parental controls and limited TV access growing up.
  • Social isolation intensified after learning of a friend’s suicide, causing Sarah to withdraw from school and her social circle.
  • Quote:
    “[My parents] were quite strict as to what my siblings and I can watch.”
    — Sarah (01:18)

• Seeking Connection Through Apps (03:13–04:50)

  • Sarah discovered Yubo, an app likened to “Tinder for kids,” to connect with new people.
  • Initial comfort from online friends who seemed interested in her well-being.

• Grooming and Escalation (04:50–06:58)

  • Gradually, online interactions—mostly with supposed teenage boys—turned sexual and manipulative.
  • Sarah, feeling cared for, complied with requests to maintain these “friendships.”
  • Quote:
    “They took advantage of that.”
    — Sarah (06:18)

• Blackmail and Descent (06:58–12:03)

  • Online acquaintances demanded explicit photos and, eventually, coerced Sarah into sending illegal videos under threats of exposure.
  • A cycle developed: refusing demands led to blackmail; compliance didn’t end the abuse.
  • When Sarah reported the abuse to the police, they threatened to prosecute her rather than pursue her abuser.
  • Quote:
    “The officer made it seem like I did this by choice. I was not blackmailed to do this.”
    — Sarah (12:03)

• Emotional Fallout and Unsupported Aftermath (12:50–13:37)

  • The police dropped charges, but Sarah’s family suppressed any discussion of the events, leaving her isolated and stigmatized.
  • Sarah eventually left home to escape the burden.

2. Meeting Carol Todd: A Beacon for Victims

• Sarah’s Recovery Support (13:46–14:21)

  • Sarah’s friend’s parents connected her with Carol Todd, a well-known advocate for victims of online abuse.

• Carol’s Motivation: Amanda’s Legacy (14:21–15:44)

  • Carol shares the story of her daughter Amanda, describing her as joyful but also challenged by ADHD and learning disabilities.
  • Amanda’s story tragically echoed Sarah’s—targeted by a predator and relentlessly bullied by peers, ultimately leading to Amanda's suicide.
  • Notable moment:
    “She was my pain in the ass kid, but she also taught me so much about Life, unfortunately, she taught me all about life after she died.”
    — Carol Todd (16:05)

• Amanda’s Experience with Early Social Media (16:44–19:38)

  • At 12–13, Amanda began uploading singing videos to YouTube; she was approached by a man who manipulated her into sending images which he used for ongoing blackmail.
  • When Amanda refused new demands, the predator shared the compromising image widely online.

• Peer Bullying and Unending Abuse (19:38–21:19)

  • Amanda’s peers became an ongoing source of torment, compounding the trauma of the initial online abuse.
  • Police’s preventative advice was only to “keep her offline”—which proved ineffective as the abuser continued stalking her via different aliases.

3. Systemic Problems: Failures and Misinformation

• Criminal Investigation and Accountability (23:05–24:00)

  • Amanda’s abuser, Aiden Coben, was eventually convicted, but not before harming over 38 victims across several countries.
  • Sentence: 11 years (Dutch court), plus 6 years (Canadian court).

• Stigma and Victim-Blaming Continues (25:11–26:51)

  • Sarah reflects that, even after her ordeal, she internalized blame until Carol Todd reframed her understanding:
    “I didn’t choose to do this. I was groomed, I was manipulated.”
    — Sarah (25:18)

• The Ongoing Battle (27:01–28:18)

  • Ava discusses the explosive rise in reported sextortion:
    • 10,000 monthly reports on Snapchat (internal documents)—likely an undercount.
    • Financial sextortion of minors is now often perpetrated by West African cybercriminal groups (“Yahoo Boys”).
    • Quote:
      “Yahoo Boys out of Nigeria have killed more American teens in the past two years than ISIS ever has.”
      — Carol Todd (28:10)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the nature of grooming and vulnerability:
  “So I think once they realized that I was very, very open and very, very gullible...they took advantage of that.”
  — Sarah (06:18)

• On police failure and victim-blaming:
  “The officer made it seem like I did this by choice. I was not blackmailed to do this.”
  — Sarah (12:03)

• On intergenerational connection and gratitude:
  “Nobody has made a bigger impact in my life than Carol has...Because of Carol...I’m a completely different person now.”
  — Sarah (26:08)

• On the paradox of the digital age:
  “The Internet was the source of so much of Amanda’s suffering, But it also gave her a way to tell her story.”
  — Ava Smithing (22:18)

• On the escalation of organized online crime:
  “Sextortion has become a cottage industry for international criminal organizations, organizations who are making millions of dollars by exploiting teenagers.”
  — Ava Smithing (28:00)

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |---------------|--------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–03:13 | Introduction and Sarah’s early experiences | | 03:20–04:50 | Using Yubo, connecting with strangers | | 06:58–08:58 | Escalation to blackmail and coercion | | 11:08–12:50 | Police response and failure to support victim | | 13:18–13:37 | Aftermath: stigma, running away | | 14:21–16:05 | Carol Todd introduces Amanda’s story | | 19:38–21:19 | Ongoing abuse: predator & peers | | 22:18–23:05 | Amanda’s viral video and legacy | | 23:05–24:00 | Arrest and conviction of Amanda's abuser | | 25:11–26:51 | Carol's support in Sarah's recovery | | 27:01–28:18 | Sextortion today: scale and internationalization |

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Episode Tone and Takeaways

The episode is raw, personal, and deeply empathetic, driven by the voices of survivors and advocates. It refuses to sugarcoat the failures of law enforcement, tech platforms, and even well-meaning families. The core message: youth are being left defenseless against organized exploitation, and institutional responses are often more punitive than protective. There is hope in mentorship and advocacy, as shown through Carol’s support of Sarah, but the systemic battle is just beginning.

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Resources Noted

• Amanda Todd Legacy Society: Founded by Carol Todd to fight online exploitation.
• Snapchat & Yubo: Major platforms discussed as vectors of abuse.
• Future episode tease: Deeper dive into organized cybercrime (“Yahoo Boys”) and their lethal impact on teens.

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For Further Listening

The episode ends promising more on the prevalence and evolution of international sextortion in the digital age, with the next episode exploring financial blackmail gangs.

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Transcript

[Ava Smithing]

Just a heads up before we start. This episode contains references to suicide, self harm and sexual abuse. Please take care while listening. Last winter I drove out to a suburb about an hour east of Vancouver, British Columbia. The scenery was stunning. Mountains and lakes and forests. The kind of landscape that's so beautiful it almost doesn't look real. It should have been a serene drive, but I was nervous I was going to meet a teenager that we're calling Sarah. I've heard a lot of heartbreaking stories over the years, but there was something about Sarah's that I couldn't get out of my head. Maybe because it wasn't just heartbreaking, it made my blood boil. I'm Ava Smithing from Paradigms in the Toronto Star. This is left to their own devices. Episode 5 Blackmailed. The first part of Sarah's story will at this point sound pretty familiar.

[Sarah]

My parents were quite strict as to what my siblings and I can watch.

[Ava Smithing]

Her earliest experiences with screens were in front of the tv.

[Sarah]

The shows that my friends were watching, like spongebob or like those kind of shows. My dad thought it was a waste of time. Never really let us watch those kind of things.

[Ava Smithing]

When she turned 12, she got her first phone and her parents were careful.

[Sarah]

It was only on WI fi, so I couldn't text. It was mainly to only like take photos or like watch YouTube.

[Ava Smithing]

But it only took a few months before she found her way onto social media.

[Sarah]

I think that's when I got into Instagram, Snapchat.

[Ava Smithing]

For a few years things were fine. Then Sarah heard that an old friend from middle school had died by suicide.

[Sarah]

I knew that she was like struggling with her mental health and family stuff a little bit, but I just didn't know the extent of it.

[Ava Smithing]

Sarah, who was in grade 10 at the time, took the death personally.

[Sarah]

So there was times where like, oh, I'm sorry I missed your message, I was out. And it felt like maybe she felt like I was ignoring her or that she wasn't my top priority anymore. So a lot of it was like blaming myself because I could have done more. It took a big toll on my mental health for sure.

[Ava Smithing]

How did you find yourself coping with that?

[Sarah]

So I didn't. I actually ended up pushing it all down at first. I kept trying to just keep going with school and then eventually around like March, everything just like blew up. Like my body just could not take it anymore and I completely shut down and I stopped going to school.

[Ava Smithing]

Sarah could barely get out of bed and like so many other lonely kids, she found solace on her Phone.

[Sarah]

I lost connection with all my friends and so I actually downloaded an app.

[Ava Smithing]

The app was called yoobo, a platform that lets you video chat with strangers from all over the world.

[Sarah]

It's like a swiping thing. It's like Tinder for kids.

[Ava Smithing]

There are actually a few apps like this, including one called Wiz that markets itself as a way for kids to expand their world and build self esteem. It's not hard to imagine how an app described as Tinder for Kids could go wrong. But at least initially, Sarah found comfort in being able to talk to other people her own age.

[Sarah]

It offered me a sense of connection to people because I wasn't in school, I wasn't very connected to my family. So this platform basically gave me a connection to talk to people.

[Ava Smithing]

Right.

[Sarah]

And I felt like a person again. I always started very, I don't know the right word, like friendly, like asking,

[Carol Todd]

oh, hey, how old are you? What are you up to?

[Sarah]

And it felt like, oh, someone actually cares about me. Someone's actually interested in me. And so it felt like I was being cared and loved for.

[Ava Smithing]

Typically, Sarah would meet somebody on Yubo and then move the conversation over to Snapchat, an app that lets you send photos that disappear after they've been opened. Snapchat messages delete automatically, so we have no way of knowing exactly what they said, but they may have sounded something like, how's school going?

[Carol Todd]

What's your favorite subject?

[Ava Smithing]

Eventually, Sarah started meeting people directly on Snapchat, often via the Quick Add feature, which recommends people you might not even know to add to your contact list.

[Sarah]

Like, my friend list was all guys and there was like probably around 40 or 50 people.

[Ava Smithing]

Sarah was 16 at the time, and she thought most of these people were teenage boys, but she had no way of knowing for sure.

[Sarah]

They would only tell me very bare bones things about them. So typically, whenever I would share like an interest, it would be like a common interest. So I can say like, oh, I really like dogs, I really like Labradors.

[Carol Todd]

No way. You have a Labrador too? I love labs.

[Ava Smithing]

When Sarah was feeling low, they'd ask about her day or the fight she just had with her parents.

[Sarah]

They'll give me like a safe spot to talk about my feelings.

[Ava Smithing]

But it quickly became clear that most of these people weren't looking for friendship.

[Sarah]

A lot of them went into very explicit conversations very quickly.

[Ava Smithing]

Sarah wasn't necessarily looking to develop romantic or sexual relationships online, but she genuinely believed that these people cared about her. And she thought the only way to continue those relationships was, was to do what they asked.

[Sarah]

So I think once they really realized that I was very, very open and very, very gullible and kind of believed anything that they really said, I think they very much saw that, and they took advantage of that.

[Ava Smithing]

This situation started to snowball.

[Sarah]

Things started to, like, quickly escalate to, like, sexual conversations. And I've kind of gotten to the point where, like, I was just kind of used to. It was just kind of natural to just answer these questions. Like, I wouldn't even think about it, and I'll just answer them. And eventually those conversations escalated to asking for photos.

[Ava Smithing]

This went on for months. Sarah's mental health, her schoolwork, her relationship with her parents, it all started to fall apart.

[Sarah]

It just escalated, like, one person after another, and then it became like, 10 people to, like, 20 people to, like, 30 people and just kept going. And it very much felt stuck. I don't know where the switch happened, but it just got to the point where I was done. I couldn't do it anymore. So I said no. And then suddenly this person is like, well, okay, well, if you don't send me more photos, if you don't send me this, if you don't send me that, then I'm gonna send all of, like, your old content that they had to your friends and family.

[Ava Smithing]

Sarah's blackmailer claimed he had obtained the explicit material Sarah had been sending out on Snapchat. And then he made a demand. He wanted her to film herself committing a very specific sexual act, an act that, as Sarah would later find out, is illegal under candidates criminal code. Sarah sat on the edge of her bed, terrified, not knowing what to do. And then she thought of her parents and what might happen if the blackmailer followed through on his threat.

[Sarah]

Both my parents, they've done everything for me. Like, I never could have asked for more. And so I was like, you know what? They're more important than I am. Like, if this ends up hurting me, then, like, who cares? Like, I don't even have a life at this point. And so I just. I did what he wanted me to do. And then I think from there, he kind of just disappeared.

[Ava Smithing]

After Sarah was blackmailed, she continued to be exploited online. Dozens of other users added her on Snapchat and asked for explicit photos.

[Sarah]

I honestly felt like there was actually, like, no way out.

[Ava Smithing]

She assumed that if she said no, she'd just be blackmailed again.

[Sarah]

And so it felt like I was in, like, a jail house without the key, and I just could not get out. So October 10th was, like Thanksgiving, and I was supposed to go for Thanksgiving dinner with my family, but I had decided not to go. And so I was home alone with my dog and I was very reliant on my phone. So I was just on my phone and I got this friend request on Snapchat. And so I added this person back. And it very much started like very normal conversation and very much escalated to asking sexual questions. And he eventually asked for explicit photos. And don't know how I built up the courage to say no, but I did. And that's when he blackmailed me again.

[Ava Smithing]

Sarah didn't know if this was a different person or the same person as before, using a different name. Either way, this time her blackmailer had proof that he had obtained compromising footage of Sarah, including that video that had been coerced out of her a few months earlier.

[Sarah]

And so this person was like, he got hold of that video and he told me, look, this is illegal. If you don't send me more explicit content, then I'm gonna call the local police, like I'm gonna get you arrested. And then he sent photos of my family and friends, Facebook accounts. And so this time it's like it's actually real because they have access to my family's social media.

[Ava Smithing]

Sarah's head was spinning and I was home alone.

[Sarah]

So that's the worst part. It's like this person can easily come and find me and like nobody's home to help me.

[Ava Smithing]

She called the police.

[Sarah]

I told them exactly what happened, and they sent a police officer.

[Ava Smithing]

You would think this story would end here. The police would arrive, interview Sarah and investigate her abuser. But Sarah says that's not what happened.

[Sarah]

The officer found out the contents of my videos, and so he explained that they weren't going to go after the online predator. They were going to come after me. You know, I'm 16. I made one mistake that I didn't

[Ava Smithing]

even know you were pressured into making this mistake.

[Sarah]

Blackmailed, Extorted. But he didn't see that. The officer made it seem like I did this by choice. I was not blackmailed to do this.

[Ava Smithing]

I just want to pause on this for a moment. A 16 year old girl told the police she was blackmailed and sexually abused online. And according to Sarah, the police threatened to prosecute her, not her abuser.

[Sarah]

And so I started self harming, I started cutting actually. And I, I just, like, I didn't know what to do because, like, I spent months not knowing like when the trial's gonna be, who, like when do I have to talk to the Lawyer like, am I going to jail?

[Ava Smithing]

Months go by where Sarah doesn't know if she's going to jail or not. And then finally, a more senior officer tells her family that the police won't prosecute Sarah. And her parents, desperate to make this all go away, don't ask the police to look any deeper into the case. Sarah still does not know who blackmailed her or whether or not he's still out there.

[Sarah]

I spent months not talking about what happened. It's like once the case was closed, nobody said anything about it. My dad would just completely shut it down. So I was not allowed to say anything about it. And so the stigma, the fear, the shame became too much. So I left home. I ran away from home.

[Ava Smithing]

Sarah went to live with a friend. And when the friend's parents learned what had happened to Sarah, they sent a message to a woman named Carol Todd.

[Carol Todd]

When I met, she had cuts here, she had cuts here, she had cuts on her legs like she was not in good shape.

[Ava Smithing]

How did it feel to hear her story?

[Carol Todd]

It was heart wrenching.

[Ava Smithing]

Carol never set out to become an expert in this kind of online abuse, which has become known as sextortion. But like so many people in this line of advocacy, she's here because it's personal to her. I wanted to start by talking a little bit about Amanda. What was she like?

[Carol Todd]

That's such a common question people ask as a child. She was, I guess, you know what picture in your brain, the bubbles, like when you pour a glass of 7Up and you see the bubbles all bubbling up. That was Amanda. She was my bubbly child.

[Ava Smithing]

Carol's daughter Amanda was born in British Columbia on November 27, 1996.

[Carol Todd]

However, come about six years old, I knew that that bubbly child, it was bubbly for a reason. And she was diagnosed with adhd, with a language based learning disability. And with that, down the road came oppositional defiance disorder.

[Ava Smithing]

I saw one interview where he said she took great pains to drive her parents crazy.

[Carol Todd]

She did. She did. She was. I don't know what you were like when you were a teenager, right? But as a kid, you have to be right. Except my personality, too, is I like to win. So we would just keep going at each other, right? Till Amanda would pick up a vase and smash it on the floor, which would stop everything. So she was very stubborn. And as I said, and I will always say this, and it's not meant in a derogatory way, is that she was my pain in the ass kid, but she also taught me so much about Life, unfortunately, she taught me all about life after she died.

[Ava Smithing]

Amanda came of age in the mid-2000s, before apps like Snapchat, Yubo and Wiz were even invented.

[Carol Todd]

She's nine years old and she has a family computer. And so it was all in view in the family room. So there was no hiding back then because laptops weren't even around.

[Ava Smithing]

Amanda was inquisitive and creative, but because of her learning disabilities, she struggled in school.

[Carol Todd]

Learning math facts, learning science facts, learning how to read Ain't happening. Learning how to sing, learning how to memorize songs. She could do all those things.

[Sarah]

Hi, my name's Amanda and I always like to sing O Canada before I sing any song. O Canada.

[Carol Todd]

She learned how to create her own videos of her singing songs.

[Sarah]

Okay, now I'm gonna sing. Started something new.

[Carol Todd]

And then she found YouTube and she learned how to upload videos on YouTube of herself singing. Because back in the day, that's, that's how Justin Bieber became famous. And that's what all the kids want. And they still do. Oh, yeah, right. They still do.

[Ava Smithing]

Oh, it's too late.

[Sarah]

Catch me now. Thank you.

[Carol Todd]

She started going online age 12 or 13. But that also like, coincides with how, you know, we had Internet that was easy and more accessible and wasn't controlled by our landline.

[Ava Smithing]

She was coming of age with the Internet.

[Carol Todd]

Yeah.

[Ava Smithing]

And then she started chatting with people online. Yes, this was in 2008. Back then, YouTube had a feature that let you privately message other users.

[Carol Todd]

Initially it was posting YouTube, her singing, the chat on YouTube and then moving to a different platform. It was probably some other communication platform. Right.

[Ava Smithing]

In 2009, a Dutch man named Aiden Coben messaged Amanda using a fake name.

[Carol Todd]

He had these 16 year old boy aliases and she thought it was a boy.

[Ava Smithing]

After chatting for a while, the conversation between Coben and Amanda became sexual. And then he asked her to send a picture.

[Carol Todd]

The picture that circulated was one where she lifted up her top and he screen capped it.

[Ava Smithing]

So much nuance with the pressure of feeling like you need to send those images as a young girl.

[Carol Todd]

Well, there's a part where you want to be loved. Can you have the attention? Most of it is love and attention.

[Ava Smithing]

Over the course of several months, Coben used this image to blackmail Amanda into sending more photos. Then in December 2010, Coben sent yet another message to Amanda. But this time she didn't respond.

[Carol Todd]

Amanda was sick. She wasn't online. And so he felt it was a refusal. So he shared it out. Because I got a link Of a pornography site, and it was a picture of Amanda. But then everyone else on her Facebook profile got it, too, because she had a thousand people she was following.

[Ava Smithing]

The photo spread like wildfire.

[Carol Todd]

It just went viral. It's what the Internet does. After that, Amanda, feeling embarrassed, shamed, whatever, just. She wouldn't talk about it. But, you know, inside, she was melting down. And that would be when she started spiraling. But what happened in her emotional life wasn't all just because of the predator. It was her peers, too. The way the peers started to bully her, abuse her with words, slut, shame her. We could have dealt with a predator, but it was her peers that kept it going.

[Ava Smithing]

The bullying was relentless.

[Carol Todd]

Amanda went to live with her dad in another community, right? And those kids found out about the images, and so they just went after her.

[Ava Smithing]

When Carol told police about the blackmail, they told her to keep Amanda offline for as long as possible.

[Carol Todd]

So we kept her offline for a while, but gave technology back to her three, four, five months later. And as soon as that happened, her predator found her again. And because he had 22 aliases, so he would know when she came back online.

[Ava Smithing]

And the extortion continues.

[Carol Todd]

The extortion continues, but so does the cyber abuse from her peers.

[Ava Smithing]

Both of these things went on for the better part of three years. Amanda became so anxious, she couldn't even leave the house.

[Carol Todd]

She stayed in her room, and she made that video in. Her words to me was, I want those kids to realize that I am not hiding behind this story. I'm sharing it. So they can say and make fun of me all they want, but I'm putting it out there. And she did.

[Ava Smithing]

If you've heard Amanda's story before, you may have seen this video. In it, Amanda's facing the camera, holding a big stack of cue cards. She flips through them one by one, telling her story to the entire world one sentence at a time.

[Carol Todd]

And so it gave her strength in order to speak out. And she did start speaking out, right? She basically said, those girls can go fuck themselves. They're not gonna hurt me anymore.

[Ava Smithing]

This, in a way, is the central paradox of being a kid online. The Internet was the source of so much of Amanda's suffering, But it also gave her a way to tell her story. What was the reaction to the video?

[Carol Todd]

Like, there's about 50 million views around the world.

[Ava Smithing]

For a while, it seemed like Amanda was getting better, but after a few months, her mental health started to deteriorate again. She never found her way back. On October 10, 2012. Amanda took her own life. She was 15 years old.

[Carol Todd]

A suspect has been identified, he's been arrested and he has been charged.

[Ava Smithing]

Two years after Amanda Todd's death, her abuser Aiden Coben was arrested in Amsterdam and charged with fraud and blackmail.

[Sarah]

Police in Holland have arrested an unnamed 35 year old man who is now facing nine criminal charges, including producing child pornography and extortion.

[Ava Smithing]

During his trial, it was revealed that he had 38 other victims, 33 underage girls and five adult men. Coben was convicted and sentenced to 11 years. In 2022, he was charged in a Canadian court as well and received an additional six year sentence. He is currently serving both sentences in a Dutch prison after 10 years of judicial hearings on two continents. Punishment for the man who tormented Carol Todd's daughter.

[Carol Todd]

Six years. Six years is. I'm okay with that.

[Ava Smithing]

After Amanda's death, Carol founded the Amanda Todd Legacy Society, an organization dedicated to fighting exploitation online. Their logo is a single snowflake. For Carol, it's the perfect encapsulation of her daughter.

[Carol Todd]

Snowflakes are precious, they're beautiful, they're fragile and they disappear so fast, just like human being.

[Ava Smithing]

Amanda's story brought unprecedented attention to the dangers of online exploitation.

[Carol Todd]

I bump into people at the grocery store even now, and they will thank me, you're Amanda's mom. And then they'll thank me and said, I've talked to my grandchildren all the time about online safety. That's purposeful. That's what I wanted out of Amanda's legacy. And it happened.

[Ava Smithing]

In the years since Amanda's death, Carol has become a resource for young people all over the world who have been victimized online.

[Sarah]

Before I had met Carol, I always kind of saw myself as like the

[Ava Smithing]

bad guy, young people like Sarah.

[Sarah]

When Carol kind of came in, she made very clear that I didn't choose to do this. I was groomed, I was manipulated. And I think from there I kind of started to realize that not all of this was my fault. I made one mistake. I was manipulated into it. I was groomed. And it led to what it led to.

[Ava Smithing]

Since they met two years ago, Carol has taken Sarah under her wing. Giving her advice, paying for her counseling, being there when Sarah needs her most.

[Sarah]

There are times where I do sometimes fall into the trap of coping in unhealthy ways, but that's when I get

[Carol Todd]

an email or a message from her and she texts.

[Sarah]

I've actually been very good about it. Like I would like catch myself before I fall into that trap. And I'll text Carol. And Carol and I would kind of sit down, talk it through, and then I'm okay. I always struggle to put my gratitude into words because Carol, like, my entire life, nobody has made a bigger impact in my life than Carol has. I was a completely different person. And because of Carol and obviously my family and my therapist, it's like I'm a completely different person

[Carol Todd]

now. I look, I can be like her grandmother. I'm old enough to be her grandmother.

[Sarah]

No way.

[Carol Todd]

Yes way.

[Ava Smithing]

Even though Amanda Todd's abuser was eventually brought to justice, Sarah's story is proof that we're still a long way from solving this problem. In fact, it's actually gotten worse. According to internal Snapchat documents, there are 10,000 reports of sextortion every month on that platform. And because a lot of kids are too ashamed to report being sextorted, that number is likely much higher. We reached out to Snapchat about this, and they told us that they have zero tolerance for this type of illegal activity and are committed to developing tools to help combat it. We'll tell you more about their response in our next episode. In any event, part of the reason for this surge in sextortion is that this is no longer a crime perpetrated predominantly by individuals.

[Carol Todd]

Nearly all of the financial sextortion specifically targeting minors is actually coming from West African cybercriminals who call themselves Yahoo Boys.

[Ava Smithing]

Sextortion has become a cottage industry for international criminal organizations, organizations who are making millions of dollars by exploiting teenagers.

[Carol Todd]

Yahoo Boys out of Nigeria have killed more American teens in the past two years than ISIS ever has.

[Ava Smithing]

That's next time on Left to Their Own Devices. Left to Their Own Devices is hosted and produced by me, Ava Smithing. The show is written and produced by Mitchell Stewart. This episode is mixed and sound designed by Reza Diah. Our story editor is Kathleen Goldhar. The executive producers for Paradigms are James Milward, Helen Hayes, Taylor Owen, and Mitchell Stewart. The executive producer for the Toronto Star is JP Fozo. If you want early access to upcoming episodes of Left to Their Own Devices, subscribe to the Toronto [e-mail].