Overseas scammers have been duping students in an extremely simple Skype con.
The University of Colorado Boulder Police Department is warning the CU campus about a series of ‘sextortion’ scams aimed specifically at CU students by overseas criminals who are looking to profit off students' willingness to get naked on camera.
According to the CUPD, the scam works something like this: the female suspect ‘friend requests’ the victim on Facebook. They exchange a few messages and eventually the student and the suspect Skype, at which point she asks the student to remove his clothes and “engage in some form of sexual exchange.” Which is presumably a racy, highly-pixelated version of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
The suspect then claims to have taped the incident and threatens to post it on Facebook for the victim’s family and friends to see if she is not paid the undisclosed amount of money. The suspect has the same screen-name in both cases: “Queenie Lee.” Investigators noted that the phone number appears to be come from somewhere in Singapore … meaning the gumshoes down at the station Googled the suspect’s area code.
Ol’ Queenie Lee doesn’t waste any time, as stated by said Sgt. Michael Lowry with CU campus police: “Having the suspect ask the victims to remove his clothes … that’s all in an hour … it’s incredible.” One lonely, dorm room Indian-burn too many can make a man take desperate measures, Officer Lowry.
In both cases, neither student paid Queenie; however, CUPD says these cases may be related to two separate incidents filed in the spring semester of this year. In the first spring case, the victim did wire money to an individual in the Philippines. In the second spring case, the victim was prompted to send the money to a person in Morocco but did not.
It looks like it might be the end of the line for this heartbreaker. Interpol and the FBI have been contacted and police feel confident the woman will be apprehended. Police were able to successfully call Queenie Lee, she hung up when she realized the police were on the other end.
Word's still out on why CU students were being targeted, but we can only assume it's … because everyone wants to see them naked. Yeah. That must be it.
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