Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District police are trying to track down a person who they said tried to extort nude photos from girls at a Cornelius high school.
Channel 9 obtained copies of warrants asking Instagram to help authorities get access to the person's account. Investigators said 15 girls who attended Hough High School were extorted for nude photos by the same person.
"Hopefully they'll learn you need to keep your clothes on when you're taking pictures," parent Mary Shea said.
Shea and many other parents said they warned their children about the dangers of taking nude photos, but now they'll have that talk again as investigators try to find out who is extorting teens.
"This is the first I've heard of the blackmailing," Laura Engle said.
According to the warrants, the investigation started when a college student in Pittsburgh who graduated from Hough High School last year told police that someone contacted her through Instagram.
CORNELIUS, N.C. — “It was awful,” the victim, who did not want to be identified, said. “I'm not the type of person to get really scared about what people say to me.”
The person showed her nude pictures that she had taken of herself and sent to a boyfriend the year before and then demanded that she send more or he or she would post them online.
“I was really careful about my social media,” she said. “I had all my sites blocked from other people.”
The student hopes whoever is behind the plot is caught quickly.
“Reality really hit me and I was like, ‘This could actually ruin my entire life,’” she said.
Police in Pittsburgh contacted CMS police, who then contacted Instagram and found that someone behind the accounts "the_lift_guy_" and "a_dannyboy" had a pattern.
They tried to extort 15 girls, ages 14-18, all from Hough High School, by using "pictures they took of themselves naked and threatening to expose them if they did not send more," the warrant states.
Police said at least two of the victims complied out of fear. None of them reported the extortion, afraid that their parents would find out.
"It's why we as parents need to monitor what they're doing," Engle said.
"The reason they do it is for attention. Honestly, in the end, they want to be seen, noticed, want to be that pretty girl in high school," Hough graduate Bryce Burns said.
Investigators traced the IP address to a home in Cornelius, but no charges have yet been filed.
- For more information from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, click here.
- For more information from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children on sextortion, click here.
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