A United States court has sentenced two Nigerian brothers, Samuel Ogoshi and Samson Ogoshi, to 17 years and six months in federal prison after pleading guilty to sexually extorting more than 100 young men and teenage boys.

The brothers’ sexual extortion act led to the death of a 17-year-old Michigan high school student Jordan DeMay, in March 2022 who committed suicide.

Court records, according to the US Department of Justice, stated that DeMay died from a self-inflicted gunshot at his home in Marquette, Michigan.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Michigan, Samuel, 24, and Samson, 21, each pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to exploit teenage boys sexually and were later extradited from Nigeria to the United States,

They were accused of running an international sextortion ring in which they posed as young women and targeted over 100 victims, including at least 11 minors.

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Prosecutors said the brothers conducted their sextortion scheme while living in Nigeria, where they bought hacked social media accounts and used them to lure victims with fake profiles.

They used their fake social media profiles to message victims. They researched online about the victims to learn where they lived, worked, attended school, and found out the identities of victims’ families and friends.

Then they solicited sexually explicit images from their minor victims and created a stack of photographs that included the compromising image with other photos of the victim and their school, family, and friends.

Speaking after the sentencing, U.S. Attorney Mark Totten in a statement said, “To criminals who commit these schemes: you are not immune from justice. We will track you down and hold you accountable, even if we have to go halfway around the world to do so.

“And to parents, teenagers, and everyone who uses a cell phone: please, please be careful. These devices can connect you to criminal networks around the world. Don’t assume people are who they say they are. Don’t share compromising images. And if you’re a victim, please reach out.”

In a report released in June by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and technology nonprofit Thorn, teenage boys are often the primary target in these schemes, with Nigeria identified as one of the countries most often linked to sextortion schemes.

Also, those involved in the schemes are linked to large crime networks or smaller coordinated networks.

In June, Reuters reported that Meta Platforms, which owns and operates Facebook and Instagram, had removed about 63,000 accounts in Nigeria that attempted to engage in sextortion schemes mostly aimed at adult men in the U.S.