ROCHESTER, N.Y. — This spring a Rochester man got a new phone and a new number, then received disturbing video threats through text messages.
Find the link to the FBI complaint form below
The videos show masked men brandishing guns and threatening the person watching them and their family. John Sturdivant showed News10NBC the videos texted to him in early May.
“Your family members will have to pay for this”
“I’m going to your location and if you’re not there one of your family members will have to pay for this. Are you listening to me you stupid (expletive)?” a man in one video said.
“If you don’t pay the money we ready to come to your crib and shoot everybody and cut off all your family heads,” another man in a second video said. “We ain’t playing no games. Pay the fine and you will be good.”
“That’s the one that really had me like ‘whoa!'” Sturdivant said.
The videos are part of an extortion scam and are followed by a text with a Cash App. But at the time the videos arrived, Sturdivant didn’t know that, so he called RPD.
He says RPD told him his name isn’t mentioned so he can’t file a report. “Because it wasn’t directed at me personally it’s not a matter they wanted to pursue,” Sturdivant said. “That concerned me because I kept telling (the person at RPD) it’s coming to my number.”
Rochester police asked News10NBC for Sturdivant’s number. With his permission, the station shared it, and RPD says they’re going to call him and talk.
Fear-based extortion scam
“Did you get a chance to watch those videos?” Brean asked. “I did,” Jonathan Weissman, a cybersecurity expert at RIT, said.
“What did you think?” Brean asked. “This is a fear-based extortion scam,” Weissman said.
Weissman says the videos go to numbers caught in a data breach or already public. “It’s not targeted. It’s designed to create panic and force a quick reaction,” Weissman said.
“So give me a sense of what people should not do if they get one of these videos and what they should do,” Brean said.
“The most important thing is not to engage. Don’t respond. Don’t click on any links and don’t send any money,” Weissman said. “Block the sender. Save the message as evidence and report it to the FBI.”
Weissman says a complaint can help the FBI identify patterns and possible groups.
Click here to for the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Form
Masked men, gun threats, and a Cash App: What Rochester should know about a video text extortion scam WHEC.com.
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