St. Paul Man Accused of Victimizing Hundreds in Sextortion Case
Minneapolis, MN (KROC-AM News) - The charges brought against a St. Paul man say investigators have identified more than 500 victims of an alleged sextortion scheme that targeted underage girls.
31-year-old Yue Vang is accused of pretending to be a female while communicating with hundreds of minor girls through a variety of social media platforms in order to coerce them into creating and sending him sexually explicit videos and images. It's alleged he then used those materials as weapons of extortion by threatening to distribute the pictures and videos to the victim's family and friends if they did not comply with his demands to send him more of the illicit digital files.
A news release from the US Attorney for Minnesota describes one case involving a 15-year-old girl. It says Vang contacted her and " threatened to distribute sexually explicit pictures of her to her classmates and parents to ruin her life unless she complied with Vang’s demands to send additional sexually explicit images and videos.”
Federal prosecutors have charged Vang with two counts of production of child pornography, one count of possession of child pornography, and one count of interstate communications with intent to extort. The news release says, if he is convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
It also says investigators are still working to identify additional victims. Anyone who believes they may have been a victim or has information that would be useful to investigators to visit a special FBI website created for this case.