RIVERDALE, Utah — Law enforcement experts have a warning this New Year’s Day for all families, saying we should all have a plan in case of a cyber kidnapping attempt like the one brought to light this past weekend involving a foreign exchange student in Riverdale.
The 17-year-old student was found in a tent in the mountains of Box Elder County — cold, but luckily Riverdale Police say he was okay. Somehow he was coerced into hiding out and aiding cyber criminals to extort some $80,000 from his family in China.
It’s a crime the FBI warned of in recent months, and local law enforcement experts say is more common than you may think.
“Just understand that this is happening,” said Chris Bertram, a retired deputy police chief who now works as a consultant and private investigator. “We talk about if there’s a fire in the house or if there’s an earthquake in the house, or something else — 'Where do we meet? Where do we muster? Who do we call?' Well, if something like this happens, stop for a second and think, 'Let’s reach out. Who is that trusted person we can talk to?'”
Bertram says that can be a friend or an advocate, an attorney or someone you know in law enforcement.
“When something like this happens, the first thing people tend to do is crisis and panic and we have to take a step back, and I recommend talking to someone trusted about this," Bertram said.
He says he’s helped clients over the last several years who have been victims of exploitation, and the common theme is trying to solve the problem themselves without turning to anyone for help — until it becomes too much.
“You’re in that crisis mode and you immediately try to fix it, and in most cases that means money," Bertram said.
But he says most cyber criminals do their research and initially start with a certain amount of money they believe the victim can afford, but they won’t stop there.
“They’ll get some money and then they’ll keep coming back to the table for more and more and more, and the clients that I have, normally they get to the point where they see it as unsustainable and they have to do something," Bertram said. "Whereas the first time, had they sought advice, had they reached out to local law enforcement or the FBI or a trusted friend that could get them to those people, they wouldn’t have paid anything. They would have put it in context and started a process that would keep everybody safe.”
Bertram credited good old-fashioned police work with helping solve this case, which he says could have been much worse had the young man been scared enough to stay much longer in the mountains alone. He said the FBI and Riverdale police department should be commended, but again, warned all families to talk about these types of cases and have a plan for if or when this may happen to them.
