Saudis prime target of cyber blackmail by women

Fifteen Saudi men a day are duped online by women to reveal intimate pictures of themselves and then blackmailed for money, according to an organization formed recently to counter this growing trend.
“No to Blackmail” has recorded 30,000 such cases involving Arab men from across the region. There are 90,000 women involved in this crimie, a member of the organization said recently.
Most of the women blackmailers are from Morocco, he said.
Men from the Gulf are the prime targets of these women, with Saudis ranked first, followed by those from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. He said the organization has filed lawsuits against many of these women.
He said the proliferation of websites where women and men are able to interact freely is to blame for the rise in this phenomenon and appealed to the police to pursue these blackmailers.
One young man, who did not want to be named, said that he met a woman on a marriage website and then started talking to her regularly on Skype. He then agreed to her suggestion to show her parts of his body. “I got carried away by her charming talk. When she had gathered information on my work and family, she started threatening to expose me. She asked for a sum of SR3,000 which I paid.”
“Then she asked for another sum, which was supposed to be the last payment. But she did not stop and continued threatening to reveal my pictures at my workplace, and to my family and friends. A friend told me to travel to her city and file a lawsuit, but the judiciary there is weak in this respect,” he said.
Mohammad Al-Zahrani, another victim, said that he responded to one of many friend requests online and soon got emotionally involved with a woman. “She sent me lots of photographs of herself in an attempt to get me to send her some of mine. But I refused and then exposed her online as an example to other women trying to do the same thing,” he said.
Hassan Abdulla, a teacher, said that he also got involved with a woman online, who eventually succeeded in convincing him to buy her a new cellphone. “From that point onward she started to blackmail me and threatened to tell my wife and children about our relationship. Things dragged on for a while until I closed my account on social media and told my wife about her,” he said.
Mohammad Numan, a journalist, said that a woman had also attempted to make contact with him online. “I had heard from my friends about meeting women on the Internet, but now women are pursuing men. I met a woman from an Arab country who insisted on introducing herself. I was attracted to her for a while, but was surprised at her boldness. Her attempts failed because I don’t have an account on Skype,” he said.
Another young man said his friend met a girl on the Internet. After a while they started exchanging photographs. Then she started blackmailing him and made him pay her SR2,000 to not publish his photographs.
Psychologist Khalid Al-Zghayir said the victims of these scams are trying to find a substitute for something missing in their lives. He warned that such online relationships can become addictive.
Saud Kateb, a media technology expert and academic, said that technology does not change human behavior, but that the threat was real because it made relationships more accessible. The virtual world has become an “easy place for blackmail and revenge,” he said.
“All social media websites are beneficial if used correctly, and this is something that is related to individual morals. The Arab world is facing a dilemma of lack of morals and social media has exposed us for what we are,” he said.
Nora Al-Sowyan, a family consultant, said Islam forbids this type of behavior. Women involved in blackmailing men online have emotional problems, she said.