Yorick has his father do the story. Understandable, says Kees. Father Hesselsays it all started with a call from the bank. He wonders whether the debitsfrom Yorick’s account are correct. Although the bank cannot go into detailsfor privacy reasons, they do say that Yorick is involved in a scam.
It all starts when Yorick has contact with a girl from Groningen viaInstagram. In lousy Dutch she tries to seduce him into sexual images. In thechats we read that Yorick is very blue when it comes to internet sex. ‘I justdon’t know if I dare to do it all. This is my first time doing this,” hewrites. Yet he does as he is asked. “At one point he was also naked,” says thefather.
And then the trouble starts right away. “Not a minute later he gets a photo ofhis head with a photo opportunity of the video recording below it sent to him.He was told: ‘You have to pay now, or I’m going to send these photos to yourfriends on Instagram.'” For 3700 euros, ‘the girl’ would remove the photos.
Yorick doesn’t dare to discuss it at home, but he doesn’t have that moneyeither. He begins to negotiate. He transfers 100 euros, but that is notenough. After another payment of another 100 euros, his bank freezes theaccount. Yorick is at his wits’ end. Because his account is frozen, he has toget the money from the blackmailer in a roundabout way. “During that time,messages have been sent to five friends of Yorick that he is jerking off to a12-year-old girl,” says the father. Yorick is absolutely devastated.
Eventually Yorick reports and goes to the doctor. That cheers him up a lot.But the police can do very little. That is why Kees is engaged. Kees and hisIT specialist find out that it is not a stunning girl, but an African man fromthe Ivory Coast.
Kees and Hessel go to Ivory Coast. Kees’ team can find out where the scammeris located via a link that the scammer clicks now and then. They see himwalking around the largest city in the African country. They follow him for awhile and decide to call the police. When the scammer is in an internet cafe,where he is still extorting Yorick at the time, they go after him. The police,who are traveling with Kees’s van, grab him and put him in the van, where Keesand Hessel are waiting for him.
Kees and Hessel are angry and tell him what he has done to Yorick. The Africanswindler is deeply affected. Moments later they decide to facetime Yorick. Hecomes face to face with his blackmailer. “We’ve got him!” exclaims Kees. “Hewants to apologize. He’s never going to do it again”, Kees translates theFrench-speaking scammer. Ivory Coast police open the scammer’s phone in thevan. It shows that he also made other victims.
Hessel is pleased that the Ivory Coast police react so accurately andintervene immediately. Something the Dutch police cannot do because of ‘hugefiles’. Hessel was in contact with the Ivorian police even after the arrest.They asked him if he is happy with the settlement. The blackmailer hasconfessed and 36 other crooks have been arrested after the arrest.
Kees van der Spek: Scammers Tackled see you every Tuesday at 8.30 pm on RTL5. You can watch the program again at Videoland.