19 victims accuse suspect of using nude photos for sextortion, blackmail
This article was updated.
Nineteen girls and women have now filed a report of sextortion against the 24-year-old suspect Gianni de W. from Etten-Leur. He is suspected of having seduced more than a hundred underage girls, and luring them to send nude photos in order to blackmail them.
The police have now identified 37 adult and 93 minor victims, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) announced on Tuesday during a court hearing in Breda. De W. was not present at the court hearing on Tuesday, but many of his alleged victims were. The number of known victims stood at eight during the first hearing in the case on January 19. A ninth report was already pending, and then ten more people press charges after the hearing, the OM said.
In January it was announced that the police had found data on his computer stored in 150 folders that carried different girls’ names. Some of them sometimes contained thousands of images of a single victim. In recent months, the focus of the sex crimes detective squad has been on evaluating the footage and investigating the identity of the girls.
The police think they need another three to six months for the investigation, the OM said. The OM still has to contact 35 underage girls, according to the public prosecutor. This has taken up a significant amount of police capacity.
That is why the sex crimes detective squad of the Zeeland-West-Brabant unit has been receiving support from extra detectives based in parts of the country where the victims live. They have been particularly helpful when approaching the victims. These victims may also decide whether to file a complaint and testify.
De W. is accused of operating under fake names such as Bryan.snapx, Bryansnelgeld and other aliases with the name Bryan. He came into contact with his victims through social media, and offered the girls money for sending a nude photo. The suspect allegedly also asked one of his victims to have sex with her boyfriend and film it for him. He then threatened to publish the photos online if they did not then send even more images. That is a form of sextortion.
"The impact of sextortion on the victims is enormous," the OM said. In some cases, the girls faced significant mental trauma, the OM concluded on the basis of the reports the victims filed.
A large amount of child pornographic material was also found on the Etten-Leur man’s computer. He has been in custody since October 11.
The next court hearing is set for Friday, July 7.
Reporting by ANP
