Groningen man in court for sextorting dozen of girls, raping several
The trial against Mark S. from Borculo, Groningen, starts in the Groningen court on Tuesday. The 32-year-old man is suspected of sextorting dozens of girls and women, threatening to publish nude images of them if they did not do what he said. He is also suspected of raping some of his victims.
The case came to light early in 2024, when a Groningen girl went to the police and reported that someone was threatening her online. She did not want to press charges, but the police decided to investigate. Gradually, investigators linked previous reports, including some from years earlier, to S., NU.nl reported.
When the police investigated the man’s phone, they found child sex abuse footage and evidence supporting suspicions dating back to 2011. According to the authorities, Mark S. sextorted dozens of children between 2013 and 2024. The trial includes approximately 20 victims in Borculo, Winterswijk, Haaften, Rotterdam, Aamstelveen, and Groningen, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) told RTL Nieuws.
According to the authorities, S. approached his victims online using various aliases. He sometimes approached the same victim with different aliases - one to trick the girls into providing nude photos and then extort them, and another to offer “help” against the extortioner, in exchange for sex. The OM charged S. with rape for this.
Journalist Lars van Eijden, who knew S. from high school and investigated after the man’s arrest, found that S. also targeted girls he knew personally. He used knowledge about the bus routes they use or who their parents are to instill further fear in the victims, keeping them in his grip for years.
According to Dagblad van het Noorden, the man used a “points system” - if victims earned enough “points,” he would not publish their images. The acts used to earn points gradually turned more and more extreme, even to the point of incest and sex with animals, according to the newspaper.
So far, S. has said little during interrogations, only denying the allegations. According to NU.nl, the OM has wiretapped conversations from prison in which S. told visitors that his life would be over if the authorities found out what he had done.
