Police say a German man engaged in cybergrooming and pressured a US teen to kill himself

BERLIN -- A 20-year-old antheral has been arrested successful Germany connected suspicion of engaging successful an online run of cybergrooming and virtual intersexual maltreatment of children, including pressuring a 13-year-old American lad to termination himself and livestream the act, authorities said Wednesday.

The German-Iranian antheral was arrested Tuesday. The man, whose sanction was not made nationalist successful enactment with German privateness rules, was taken into custody astatine his parents’ flat successful the bluish metropolis of Hamburg. Prosecutors person yet to determine whether to bring ceremonial charges. He denied wrongdoing successful a closed-doors quality earlier a judge, authorities said.

“The acts transcend quality imagination,” Hamburg Attorney General Jörg Fröhlich said astatine a quality league Wednesday, German quality bureau dpa reported.

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Editor's note: This communicative includes treatment of intersexual unit and suicide. If you oregon idiosyncratic you cognize needs assistance successful the U.S., telephone oregon substance 988 oregon chat astatine 988Lifeline.org. The German equivalent is +49 800 111 0 111.

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The antheral is accused of perpetrating a analyzable planetary cybergrooming cognition arsenic a subordinate of “764,” which the FBI describes arsenic a convulsive online web that exploits minors virtually to coerce them into acts of self-harm and intersexual abuse.

The antheral is suspected of committing 120 crimes against 8 victims, ages 11 to 15, who were from Germany, England, Canada and the U.S. Another of the victims, a 14-year-old Canadian girl, attempted to instrumentality her ain life. Authorities person not released the names of immoderate of the alleged victims.

In the lawsuit of the 13-year-old American boy, German constabulary and prosecutors said the fishy utilized different underaged unfortunate to unit the teen.

The violations occurred implicit the net betwixt 2021, erstwhile the fishy was 16 years old, and 2023, constabulary said.

Through his online pseudonym, “White Tiger," helium preyed connected hopeless children successful online forums, including those discussing suicide, dpa reported. Investigators judge helium exploited their vulnerabilities, forcing them to make pornographic and convulsive recordings wherever they injured themselves to the constituent of bleeding during unrecorded chats.

“These are depths that are hard to bear,” Hamburg constabulary main Falk Schnabel said during the quality conference.

The antheral made recordings of the acts to support arsenic trophies, investigators said, and utilized them arsenic leverage against the victims by threatening to people them unless the children committed adjacent much self-harm connected camera.

Police said Wednesday they privation publicity astir the lawsuit to assistance forestall aboriginal online abuse.

“We anticipation that connection of the apprehension volition dispersed wrong the assemblage and that this volition enactment arsenic an interior deterrent,” Fröhlich said.