"Between the money bag and clown emojis, the lmfaos and the loooools, a pixelated thumbnail of a teenager covered in blood appeared in a Telegram group chat on a September afternoon in 2022. Noah Urban, then an 18-year-old living in Palm Coast, Florida, clicked play. He watched as the kid in the video begged him to transfer $200,000 to his captors, who were holding guns to his head."
""Elijah, for real bro, you know we used to work together in the past," the boy said, addressing Noah by one of his aliases. His face was swollen, his mouth full of blood trickling onto a white Hollister sweatshirt. "You know I've got your back. Just let me know. I'll do whatever you want." Noah instantly recognized the kid. Justin had worked for him, helping steal cryptocurrency. He didn't know Justin's full name, but he knew not to cave in to ransom demands."
Teenagers in a Telegram group shared a pixelated thumbnail showing a bloodied captive who begged for $200,000, filmed with guns to his head. An 18-year-old, Noah Urban, watched the clip and recognized the victim as Justin, a former accomplice who had helped steal cryptocurrency. Noah refused the ransom demand, suspecting the video could be fake. The clip exemplified a cybergang's use of violent intimidation and staged kidnappings to extort money. By 2022 Noah was on the run from the FBI as a member of a group later called Scattered Spider, highlighting the overlap between cybercrime, social-media platforms, and real-world threats.
Read at DataBreaches.Net
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