Intimate video of Guelph man leads to extortion attempt

Two hands are illuminated by the screen of a cellphone in this undated stock image. (Jaroslav Maléř/Pexels.com)

A Guelph man has learned a hard lesson after he said someone tried to extort him for thousands of dollars using an intimate video he sent through social media.

The man, in his 20s, reached out to the Guelph Police Service on Tuesday afternoon. He told them he had met a person whom he thought was a woman through a dating app and had begun chatting with her on social media. At some point during their conversations, he sent an intimate video of himself.

A short time later, the ‘woman’ sent the man screenshots of the his Facebook friends list and threatened to publish the video if he did give her thousands of dollars.

He told her he could only pay $800 and then received a phone call from a number registered in the Philippines demanding he send the money.

The victim told police he got scared and deleted all of his social media accounts.