Houston-area man accused of running sextortion scheme
HOUSTON - A Houston-area man appeared before a federal judge Tuesday after being charged with running a sextortion scheme where he allegedly hacked into more than 1,000 victim's personal social media accounts and blackmailing them with their intimate photos and videos. Many of those victims are minors.
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Andrew Venegas, 23, of Magnolia, has allegedly committed these crimes at least since 2021, and was charged with sexual exploitation of minors.
"Strangers online are just as dangerous as strangers in real life," said sex crimes lawyer Jacob Schiffer.
Court documents claim he would blackmail them by saying they either had to send more or pay him through Bitcoin or else Venegas would post them online or send them to friends and family.
In some instances, investigators allege Venegas already posted them on a website and would blackmail the victims by saying they either had to send more or pay him to get them deleted.
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Schiffer said, "You have children out there who are believing the lies they’re being fed by these extorters that is your world is going to crumble unless dot, dot, dot."
Venegas appears in federal court
On Tuesday, Venegas appeared for his detention hearing in shackles with his parents present in the courtroom.
The state brought the FBI special agent over the case as a witness. She testified over the investigative process, which includes much of the evidence against Venegas.
There were certain questions the special agent could not answer due to it still being an active investigation. Detectives are still in the process of analyzing Venegas’s devices that were seized from his home.
Judge Christina Bryan ultimately gave Venegas a $100,000 bond, however he will be placed under house arrest and will have no access to the internet or any electronic devices that can access the internet.
The federal prosecutors immediately appealed this decision. They requested Judge Bryan keep Venegas detained pending trial. A second judge will rule on the appeal, likely Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors provided no comment to FOX 26.
Venegas’s attorney, Paul Doyle only noted that Venegas has not been indicted by a grand jury but did not provide an answer for when a decision could be made. Doyle then reiterated that Venegas is innocent until proved guilty.
How common are these cases?
The FBI says schemes like this are more common than you may realize.
"We see an exponential increase, but we think that it would be equal if not greater the number of victims that are potentially out there that are suffering in silence," said David Martinez, assistant special agent in charge at FBI Houston.
They claim it’s one of the most under reported crimes due to the shame and guilt associated with it, and Martinez says they have also seen an increase of victim suicides that result from these crimes.
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"That’s largely from people that were suffering in silence that didn’t have an opportunity to engage with law enforcement or parents or school counselors and really thought that they had made a mistake that they couldn’t recover from and thought they had no options but to take their own life," he said. "That’s truly one of the biggest tragedies, and it’s corresponding with the exponential increase in these cases."
They urge parents to have an open discussion with their children so it will get reported if it does happen.
Schiffer said, "The biggest thing you can do for your child is to let them know that you are there, to let them feel comfortable to tell you, and then also evidence."
Schiffer says it’s important to reiterate to your kids to never delete anything even if it may be embarrassing, because this evidence not only helps prosecution. It’s paramount to investigators to find out who the perpetrator is and if there are any other victims.
But it’s still very difficult for the FBI to catch them.
"It's very, very difficult to, one, locate them and then, two, once they actually are located, have the evidence in order to show they were behind the actual crimes," said Martinez.