Prison Inmates Catfished $560,000 Out of Military Service Members in Sextortion Scam, NCIS Says (gizmodo.com) 165
Hundreds of military service members reportedly got caught up in a sextortion scam run by prison inmates using cellphones, according to a release issued by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). From a report: Military agents from multiple criminal investigation groups have served summons and issued warrants for arrests related to the scheme. According to the NCIS, South Carolina and North Carolina prison inmates, assisted by outside accomplices, sought out service members through dating sites and social media, then took on false identities, feigned romantic interest, and exchanged photos.
Once the inmates had successfully catfished their targets, they would then pose as the father of the fake persona, insisting their child was underage and that the target had therefore committed a crime by exchanging photos. In some situations, the "father" claimed he wouldn't press charges if the target gave him money. Sometimes the catfisher would pose as law enforcement requesting money for the family.
Once the inmates had successfully catfished their targets, they would then pose as the father of the fake persona, insisting their child was underage and that the target had therefore committed a crime by exchanging photos. In some situations, the "father" claimed he wouldn't press charges if the target gave him money. Sometimes the catfisher would pose as law enforcement requesting money for the family.
This is why (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re:This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: This is why (Score:5, Interesting)
If a girl under 18 sneaks into the bar and you do her, even with her consent, your "She must have been 21 because she was in the bar" defense won't save you.
There are guys who even checked a girl's convincing fake ID and relied on that as proof of her being over 18 yet have ended up convicted of statutory rape (although, I doubt police would get away with fake ids in a sting operation -- that would likely be crossing the entrapment threshold).
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So if a service member was subject to a court martial for having sex with an underage girl who was, say, 15 years old but in a bar with a fake ID. He could present evidence to
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That's a tricky one. I can't find any recent cases where this is explicitly the situation but there are a lot of legal advice pages (including from actual lawyers) stating that statutory rape is a strict liability offence to which "the child's fake ID showed them to be of age" is not a defence.
In the UK it's a bit easier: The legal age to drive is a year older than the legal age to have sex so only fuck people that own a car.
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Many times
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There was a case here in Canada, back in the '50's I believe, where some poor guy picked up a girl at the bar, believing she was of age, got caught fucking her and charged with statutory rape. Due to the way the law was written, believing the girl was of age was not a defence and he got 5 years. The Judge was very apologetic when sentencing the guy but the law was the law.
Shortly after, due to this case, the law was changed so that believing a girl was of age was a defence.
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The Judge was very apologetic when sentencing the guy but the law was the law.
Are judges in Canada legally obligated to return a guilty verdict? If so, that's crap. If not, that judge wasn't sorry in the least.
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Well, I know bugger-all about the Canadian court system, but here in the USA you don't have to exercise your right to a trial by jury. I also know nothing about the possibly apocryphal anecdote in question. So at this phase, I'm all about asking questions :p
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Our right to a jury is not as strong as in America. Basically it only kicks in at the possibility of getting over 5 years in prison and I believe people are less likely to elect trial by jury. Not sure if the case resulted in 5 years plus a day or less a day, both common on the books due to that 5 year thing.
Re:This is why (Score:4, Funny)
No, but they're legally obligated to apologize.
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The guy was guilty as the law was written, so the Judge had no reason to throw the case out as the facts were clear. There was also no right about double jeopardy at the time so if the Judge had thrown it out, there could well have been a new trial. Really the Crown shouldn't have pursued the case but they did. Perhaps the whole idea was to force Parliament into fixing a bad law, which happened. At the time, Parliament was Supreme and Judges almost never bucked the law. That changed when we got our Charter
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Judges judge according to the law. Not according to what our feelings might be that day. I know that's a weird idea to the far left, but here we are.
Is that what they told you? They lied, and you believed it.
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A ticket for 36 in a 35 zone is within the margin of error of the radar gun or whatever and would be a reason for the Judge to throw it out.
Re: This is why (Score:3, Interesting)
The defence is known as the "presumption of regularity" where you can assume another individual is law abiding: hence it was reasonable to believe she was 21+.
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Depends on where you live. In Texas, you are carded if you look under 40.
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You can politely torture someone to death and many an asshole is polite about it. Civilized people will forgive people for mistakes made in the past.
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Re:Discharge them (Score:5, Informative)
Did they intend to commit a crime, though -- i.e. did the fake dating profiles have a birth date that was over 18 years ago? This is basically an online variant of the old scam. Women gets a guy drunk, takes him home from a bar, they get naked. Random guy bursts in on them naked. Guy either pretends to be:
(1) The woman's angry husband, who'll report the guy to his CO for adultery
(2) An angry pimp demanding payment
(3) The woman's father, and the woman is actually 16.
(4) An undercover cop investigating a prostitution ring.
Either way, some money changes hands and everyone is on their merry way.
That particular scam (Score:3)
That scam is called 'the Badger Game' and is still popular today.
About the criminal intent, this happened in the US. In the United States almost every jurisdiction has 'strict liability' on their age of consent laws. This means that you are strictly liable for any lewd activity with a person below the age of consent, REGARDLESS OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THAT PERSON'S AGE.
This is explicitly done to remove the "I didn't know!" defense. It isn't enough to say "I saw an ID, and she looked old enough, and..."
It do
Re:That particular scam (Score:5, Interesting)
This scam isn't limited to the military... They called me, and I am not in the military and i'm not on dating sites. And, of course, i dont send pictures of my junk to people. Based what the guy said I figure they got my info off facebook. He told me $500 would cover my "transgressions" or else. I told him to "Bring it, bitch" and never heard from him again.
Scammers like this are all bark and no bite.
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Does it change if there is an intermediary? They legally committed fraud if they scammed through the dating sites, which would have required both parties to be adults. (No, not suggesting the dating site get sued. Just wondering if the act of fraud changes anything)
Presence of intermediary (Score:2)
Well, I am not a lawyer, and we are stretching the boundaries of my knowledge here, but...
In this particular case, I am pretty sure the soldiers are off the hook because there were never any underage people involved, just scammy convicted felons. They are liable to see some disciplinary action through their commands for trying to hide it, but probably nothing too severe. And they may get off with nothing at all, it depends on the people in the chain of command above them.
In general, I don't think the inte
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IANAL either, and I need more information. From what I gather from TFA, they seem to have no idea about the age.
After the service member responded, prisoners would then assume a role of the female's father, who claimed the female was a juvenile.
However, TFA didn't clearly say anything about those service members knowing those fictitious young females' age before hand. If they knew about the age and the age was younger than 18, then there is no defend for them and they are possibly (dishonorably) discharged. If they didn't know and there was no evidence of the knowledge, or they were told that the age was 18+, then I would agree with you
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About the criminal intent, this happened in the US. In the United States almost every jurisdiction has 'strict liability' on their age of consent laws. This means that you are strictly liable for any lewd activity with a person below the age of consent, REGARDLESS OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THAT PERSON'S AGE.
These folks are military. The UCMJ actually allows for the "I thought she was 18" defense (actually, technically, 16, but damn that's creepy) under Article 120. But you are right, most civilian jurisdictions have strict liability.
Huh (Score:2)
I did not know that. Thanks.
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This is basically an online variant of the old scam
Forsyte wrote a nice short story about this theme. With the added twist that the victim was an ex bomb disposal expert.
More proof.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:More proof.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Entrapment schemes like the one described in TFA are by their very definition designed to trap people who are behaving normally and reasonably. If there's any selection bias going on, it'd be on the part of the scammers. They might deliberately target military personnel because the potential penalty for being entrapped is much greater for military personnel (prison + dishonorable discharge) than for civilians (only prison), making them more likely to pay the extortion fee.
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All that the "data" prove is that the U.S. is so poorly educated and suffers from so much inequality that even the minimal recruitment standards they impose put the mean of enlistees above that of the average population. That doesn't even come close to making them the "best and brightest," let alone even particularly smart.
It just means they have successfully kept out REALLY stupid, poor, and uneducated people.
Re: More proof.... (Score:1)
You don't understand, the US military is a *welfare* scheme that is somewhat palatable to the far right. Think about it.
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And this is why we will never get proper healthcare or cheaper education in the USA.
See, if college/university were within the grasp of "the plebs" and healthcare were more affordable, then nobody would enlist in the military anymore because the primary reason of joining are those 2 things.
Nobody honestly signs up to become a bullet sponge.
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The data contradicts your belief. Military enlistees are better educated, have higher IQs, and come from wealthier families than their peers in the general population.
More of them have graduated high school, but less of them have graduated college, so I'm not sure you can call them better educated. In fact, I'm sure you can't. IQ scores are largely bullshit, but they are irrelevant to your argument since your fine citation states that they only discard the lowest third of applicants by IQ, not anything about what those scores are. If most of the people who apply to join the military have below-average IQ, then they can discard the bottom third and still wind up with an a
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I am a veteran. I guess my reading comprehension must be lacking. My understanding is that cutting off the bottom 1/3 is the starting point. From there you need to remove those with criminal records, health problems, and can't pass a PT test (which isn't that hard). Boot camp is as much about weeding out people who have no chance of handling combat stress as it is training. After boot camp, academy, ROTC, or OCS, you go to your job's school. The school will further weed out people who can't hack it. The job
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From there you need to remove those with criminal records, health problems, and can't pass a PT test (which isn't that hard).
Except they're letting more of those kind of people into the military these days. There's been numerous articles about it. How they're having to accept people they never would have accepted before, in all of these categories. So no.
After boot camp, academy, ROTC, or OCS, you go to your job's school. The school will further weed out people who can't hack it.
Except they've got MOSes for idiots as well as geniuses.
Contractors is one of the reasons I got out. They were often paid twice as much for the same job
Yeah, that's how badly you're getting fucked if you join the military.
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When I joined the AF it's acceptance was higher than the Army, and yet I watched guys collect after-shave to drink, and had test scores of 30(or less) out of 100. Yup, high quality recruits!
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The AF is one part of the mil that has to "work" as people/media tend to notice the flying part.
Its not like a ship/sub that can be returned to port and have contractors repair for months in secret.
A new tank that can be put on the back of a big truck and repaired later.
Spending millions only to find out later that a person will never be able to fly is another problem many AF took decad
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Most people in the USAF are not pilots, and don't fly as part of their job.
Sure, the USAF has multi-million dollar equipment, but they also have floors to sweep and potatoes to peel.
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Sorry, but military contracting is still counted as military expenditures for budget purposes. Prior to the Rs taking back Congress under Obama, the AF was working to "in-source" a lot of the support jobs formerly contracted out to private outfits like CH2M/Hill because of the massive waste and corruption they were engaged in.
With the R's in control of all three branches, the feeding troughs are back in business for military contractors.
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And yet has the most progressive treatment of women.
Re:More proof.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More proof.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Fuck the American culture of hero-worship of anyone in a uniform and with a gun.
The hero worship increases proportionally to the square of the distance from the nearest military base. When travelling in uniform, people would buy me drinks. But just off base, lawns would have signs that said "Dogs and Marines Keep off the Grass". Familiarity breeds contempt.
Semper fi.
Re:More proof.... (Score:4, Informative)
that contempt is usually well earned and easy to understand how peoples view would improve at distance. I have lived near a military base and the lack of respect for the local community and property by those from the base was atrocious. It is actually something I would always look at in future to ensure a place I buy is not near a base.
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It's not just familiarity, it's that there's an increase in malfeasance. Sure, it's not every service person that misbehaves, but seeing a couple will make far more of an impression than dozens that are behaving themselves.
But, there's also the issue that an awful lot of those places with bases are also places with people that are educated enough to know that the biggest threats to America come from the things that the military does. 9/11 was a direct consequence of the military's involvement in the Middle
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Maybe if Marines would pick up after themselves after pooping on people's lawns then they'd get a little more respect.
I've seen Navy personnel that had successfully been trained to do this. Doubt if it would work with Marines though.
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The inappropriate defecation is not caused by a lack of training, but by an excess of alcohol.
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You give thanks to the marines who, right or wrong, faught for your freedom, your rights, and your way of life, for you.
Wars are seldom just, often over resources, and are often due to a total failure of the political and investor class to treat those they are supposed to look after with self-respect and dignity. Sometimes society makes mistakes, and sometimes a lot of people get drug into the gutter right along with those mistakes. Long history there if you care to go look.
Frankly, Fuck the people who do
Re: More proof.... (Score:3)
Fine, but first: can you please explain how the US military went from being reviled in the 70's to the hero worship of today? I really do not understand this, given that the wars of the past couple of decades have been even less honorable and less justified than Vietnam.
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Especially the ones who aren't violent enough to be police officers.
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The difference of course being that Trump NEVER visited with the troops and complained about Obama's golfing, which he's quadrupled. So there's some truth there, but also that's a stretched diaper in Trump's case.
Honestly, (Score:3, Insightful)
It's hard to tell who the bad guys are in this story?
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Government officials who gave computer access to inmates.
The inmates were using smuggled cell phones.
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It's hard to tell who the bad guys are in this story?
What’s odd about a bunch of mostly 18-20-something military members using dating sites and finding out their date is lying about their age?
This is so common it’s annual training for young enlisted guys. How’s that make them bad?
Payment in secrets... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a technique China and Russia use to collect military secrets. Extortion, and instead of being paid in cash, payment comes in the form of information about weapons systems, sensor performance, etc.
It works.
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It works.
It would stop working if we decriminalized texting.
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Loose slips sink ships.
As if that expression needed to be more of a tongue twister.
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Cyber Romeo spy ring? (Score:2)
Get to know the base workings and slowly find someone with some lifestyle to hide.
Was this just the start of a decade long spy attempt to map out US officers personality traits by chatting with their low rank staff?
Just a very basic "Internet 101" tip: (Score:2)
Don't send money to anyone you meet on the internet, ever.
EVEN IF SHE PROMISES TO SUCK YOUR DICK.
But what about? (Score:2)
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Call prison call costs down to say $0.005 min max (Score:3)
Call prison call costs down to say $0.005 min max and then the cell phone issue will be cut down big time.
Re: Call prison call costs down to say $0.005 min (Score:1)
No it won't. Those prison phones are recorded and don't go online genius.
The prisons don't care anyways, it's just contraband to confiscate. If they care they will deploy 1 Stingray per prison and now the cellphones don't stop ringing so your ass is caught immediately or your battery drained. Either way they could easily make cellphones useless in prison but they don't. They're just there to fleece the tax payers with the least amount of spending. They'll expend all kinds of "effort" because it makes them l
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I meant to mark this Insightful, but my clumsy finger hit Flambait, so I'm commenting to remove it since I can't correct it.
The prisons here have been fighting to be allowed to jam mobile phones, but so far the Feds won't allow it.
Must be Grisham fans (Score:2)
Your'e cooking... (Score:1)
...with butter.