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FBI
Sextortion and
Cyberstalking
How a Single Tip Uncovered an International Scheme
04/26/16
The investigation that uncovered a far-reaching sextortion scheme by a
U.S. State Department employee at the U.S. Embassy in London all
started with a single complaint by a young victim in Kentucky. She went
to the police.
“The victim basically was saying that she was being cyberstalked by
some guy who got into her e-mail and was threatening to expose
compromising photos of her to her friends and family,” said FBI Special
Agent Andrew Young, who interviewed some of the hundreds of victims
targeted by Michael C. Ford, a former State Department civilian
employee who was sentenced last month to nearly five years in prison
for hacking into the e-mail accounts of young women to extort them.
According to the facts of the case, between January 2013 and May 2015,
Ford—while working in London—posed as a member of a large web company’s
“account deletion team” and sent out e-mails to thousands of women
warning them that their e-mail accounts would be deleted if they didn’t
provide their passwords. Ford then used the passwords he received to
hack into victims’ e-mail and social media accounts to search for nude
and topless photos and personal information like contacts and addresses.
He hacked into at least 450 e-mail accounts and admitted e-mailing at
least 75 women, threatening to circulate their compromising pictures
unless they sent him more.
Following the initial complaint in Kentucky, local police reached out
to the FBI in Louisville, where agents traced the source of the e-mails
to a State Department server in London. The Diplomatic Security Service
(DSS) began an internal probe that led to Ford and uncovered the
massive hacking, cyberstalking, and sextortion scheme. Young said the
investigation showed Ford spent the bulk of his time at work using a
government computer to “extort women, hack into their e-mail accounts,
and threaten them.”
The FBI’s primary role in the investigation was interviewing victims
across the U.S. to build a case. “They were angry,” said Young, who
worked the case out of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office, which had
jurisdiction because Ford had Georgia residency. “Somebody steals your
most private pictures out of your computer, then comes back and
threatens you with it. They felt compromised.”
At Ford’s March 21 sentencing, prosecutors presented evidence of
another scheme he started several years earlier, in 2009. Posing as a
talent scout, Ford combed through websites where aspiring models posted
their pictures and contact information. He duped young women into
sending personal information, including their measurements and dates of
birth. “He would send them an e-mail with a link, and when they clicked
on the link he got access to their computer and e-mail accounts,” Young
said.
Ford, 36, of Atlanta, was indicted August 18, 2015 following his arrest
by DSS during a visit to Atlanta. He pled guilty in December.
His plea was due in large part to the voluminous evidence against him,
including the statements of victims like the one who came forward in
Kentucky.
“There was no getting around it,” Young said. “Witness after witness
and a lot of forensic evidence—it made putting him in jail a whole lot
easier.”
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