Four men arrested in West Africa for extortion scheme linked to California teen's suicide

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Three years after a California teenager died by suicide, four men in West Africa have been arrested on suspicion of participating in “international sextortion scheme," according to federal investigators.

The 2022 death of Ryan Last, a 17-year-old high school senior, prompted a lengthy international investigation, according to a statement Friday from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Last had corresponded online with someone on a Meta social media platform he believed to be a young woman who sent him explicit photos. The teen reciprocated with similar photos of himself and was immediately hit with a blackmail demand. Terrified the photos would be exposed, Last died by suicide, the statement said.

In April, the blackmailer was arrested in Cote d’Ivoire, officials said. At the time of his arrest, the suspect “still had the sextortion messages he sent to the 17-year-old victim in February 2022 on his phone,” the DOJ said. The teen, from San Jose, had paid him $150. The city is around 42 miles (68 kilometers) southeast of downtown San Francisco.

Three other men in Cote d’Ivoire were arrested on money laundering charges. The DOJ said the men targeted “thousands of victims” in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Because Cote d’Ivoire does not extradite citizens, the four men will face cybercrime charges in their own country, officials said. A fifth man arrested in Los Angeles in Dec. 2022 was convicted of extortion and was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in jail.

In the U.S., the case was investigated by the FBI, the San Jose Police Department and the tech company Meta, which the DOJ credited for providing critical information to help identify the suspects.

In a similar case, two brothers from Nigeria were sentenced in 2024 to 17 1/2 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to sexually extorting teenage boys and young men across the U.S., including a 17-year-old from Michigan who took his own life.