Four men in Côte d’Ivoire have been arrested on criminal charges relating to their role in an international “sextortion” scheme that targeted thousands of victims, including minors, throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Italy.
In February 2022, Ryan Last, a 17-year-old high school senior from San Jose, California, died by suicide hours after being sextorted online by an individual pretending to be a 20-year-old woman.
Through a lengthy, coordinated investigation involving U.S. and Ivorian law enforcement, the evidence ultimately led law enforcement to identify Alfred Kassi, an Ivorian citizen living in Côte d’Ivoire, as the individual allegedly conducting the sextortion.
On April 29, Kassi was arrested by Ivorian law enforcement. At the time of his arrest, Kassi allegedly still had the sextortion messages he sent to the 17-year-old victim in February 2022 on his phone.
Additionally, the investigation identified several alleged money laundering accomplices who helped Kassi move the money he received from the 17-year-old victim, who had paid $150 to prevent his intimate images from being disseminated.
One of those alleged money launderers is Oumarou Ouedraogo, who was arrested by Ivorian law enforcement on April 25. In addition, Ivorian law enforcement arrested two other individuals, Moussa Diaby and Oumar Cisse.
Both Diaby and Cisse were part of Kassi’s alleged sextortion network and admitted to their own sextortion crimes. A U.S.-based accomplice, Jonathan Kassi (unrelated to Alfred Kassi), was convicted in 2023 in a California State Court and sentenced to 18 months in jail.
The government of Côte d’Ivoire does not extradite its citizens, so these defendants will be prosecuted in their own country under Ivorian cybercrime statutes.
Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Acting U.S. Attorney Patrick D. Robbins for the Northern District of California, and Acting Assistant Director Darren Cox of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division made the announcement.
The FBI is investigating the case, with substantial assistance from the San Jose Police Department, the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan, and Meta, which provided critical information that assisted with identifying the offenders.
The government of Côte d’Ivoire, specifically the Anti-Terrorist Operational Intelligence Centre (CROAT), conducted the investigation and arrests in Côte d’Ivoire.
