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NewsTranscript
00:00 For many teenagers, their local football ground is the only place to be on the weekends. But
00:06 at this club, one teenager is missing.
00:10 So Murray had a season ticket, he'd come here every weekend with his mates?
00:13 Yep, that's just the way they were. He sat along here and I, 23.
00:18 One Saturday, whilst Murray's friends sat waiting for him to join them, his parents
00:22 Ros and Mark's lives had just changed forever.
00:25 It's very hard seeing his friends here now because you're very conscious he should be
00:29 here, he would be here with them.
00:33 16-year-old Murray Dowie from Dunblane had been enjoying Christmas with his parents and
00:38 two brothers.
00:39 It was a nice family day in the evening, we were just chatting and watching rubbish on
00:44 telly and he went up to his room as normal. It transpires he was contacted by somebody
00:51 claiming to be a young girl.
00:53 That young girl was actually a scammer who tricked him into sharing an intimate image
00:58 and blackmailed him with it.
01:00 Just hours after he'd become a victim of sextortion, Murray took his own life.
01:05 I was sitting watching football and the next thing I heard, Ros screaming, screams like
01:10 I've never heard in my life before. It was absolutely horrendous.
01:14 We were just a normal family of five until the next morning. We're down to four people
01:19 with a huge Murray-shaped gap that's never going to go away.
01:24 He was a very normal, easy going, helpful boy. Liked to laugh, he had a great sense
01:32 of humour. But he was a great kid, you know.
01:39 Can't believe it's gone.
01:43 How is it possible that you can have a happy, healthy 16-year-old and within a few hours
01:51 he'd taken his own life?
01:54 You know, he's my little boy. To think of my little boy in such distress and not to
01:57 have reached out for help, it's awful. I don't want this to happen to any other family.
02:04 One of the reasons it's so devastating as it comes into your house, exactly where Murray
02:11 should have been safest, in his room, asleep.
02:14 The way these criminals act, they're relentless and very threatening and he obviously just
02:18 went into a blind panic and with a teenage brain, you know, the sort of emotional brain
02:23 took over.
02:25 In this office, staff are exposed to that fear and panic from dozens of sextortion victims
02:30 every week. It brings the scale of the problem sharply into focus.
02:36 We're not there long before a call comes in.
02:38 Hi, Revenge Porn Helpline, Emma speaking.
02:41 It's a sextortion report. Like most cases, the caller had met a girl on a social media
02:46 site but it wasn't a girl, it was a scammer.
02:49 So he'd been receiving the threats for a few days. They then added all of his friends and
02:54 family into a big group chat. They had actually shared the content into the group chat which
02:58 just obviously kind of adds a whole other layer to things. He then sort of obviously
03:02 feels really kind of violated and humiliated and sort of really ashamed of what's happened.
03:08 Although this victim didn't send any money, many do.
03:11 Sometimes people have kind of sent a lot of their sort of university loan, they're kind
03:14 of left with very little money. You hear of that sort of relatively often.
03:18 When we say sending money to these extortionists, what kind of money are we talking about?
03:23 It really ranges, sometimes it can be sort of thousands of pounds, unfortunately.
03:27 But for every call this helpline takes, there's a line of scammers looking for their next
03:32 victim.
03:33 Chris is a reformed scammer. He wanted to remain anonymous. He used to operate romance
03:38 scams but now works with a company trying to stop them.
03:43 People make millions and millions of dollars from scamming. So everyone wants to make that
03:49 kind of money too.
03:50 Do they realise the damage that they're doing?
03:53 Yeah, they actually realise the damage they're doing. They don't care if they're killing
03:57 people, they just want to make money.
04:00 ITV News has seen dozens of videos linked to scammers operating overseas showing how-to
04:06 guides on blackmailing.
04:08 So if you're ready to start blackmailing, you can just inbox me on WhatsApp.
04:14 We found multiple accounts linked across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok sharing detailed methods
04:20 of how to extort someone, some with hundreds of thousands of views.
04:25 We were even able to infiltrate one chat where we were met with detailed blackmailing scripts.
04:30 One said, "I will make your life so miserable. I'm posting your nude photos. I'm going to
04:35 make you die in pain."
04:37 For most victims, to receive those types of threats would cause panic but for teenagers
04:43 like Murray, the consequences can be devastating.
04:47 That demographic has been chosen very specifically by these criminals for their vulnerability
04:52 to this crime.
04:54 Those criminals killed our son. They can't just be anonymous people behind a keyboard
05:01 thousands of miles away. There has to be consequences. The thought that they were going to share
05:05 this with all his contacts would have felt like the end of his world. But it wouldn't
05:10 have been, even if they had done that, it wouldn't have been the end of his world. We'd
05:13 have got over it. We'd have helped him through it.
05:15 The platforms that these criminals are using need to up their safeguarding, up their protection
05:23 for young people. If this is happening to you, that is your absolute route out of it.
05:29 Just switch the phone off and walk away from it.
05:31 Go and get help.
05:32 I wish I might have done that.
05:38 Murray's parents are calling on Nigerian authorities to keep working with Police Scotland
05:43 to get justice for their son and to ensure no other teenagers fall victim to these horrific
05:49 scams again.
05:50 The kids are at the back.
05:55 It's difficult to come.