The Auckland man died in 2024, within hours of making contact with someone online who identified themselves as “Donna Chase”.
He exchanged messages and images of a sexual nature with “Donna”, and she immediately began blackmailing him.
Police do not believe Donna Chase existed, but that she was an AI-generated persona used to trick the man into sharing sexually explicit images.
They told Coroner Janet Anderson they believed the bank account the man paid money into was associated with an organised criminal network based overseas.
“I have no doubt that the actions of ‘Donna’ were the primary relevant factor in [his] death,” Coroner Anderson said.
“She deliberately solicited images of a sexual nature … and then used these to blackmail him. This is a practice known as ‘sextortion’.”
The man died “within hours” of his first communication with Donna, the coroner said.
In a published summary, Coroner Anderson said the man was under stress when he died.
A relative had died six months earlier, he was struggling with a relationship break-up, was on medical leave from work and had financial issues.
The man had told a relative he was finding it hard to get out of bed and had occasionally made references to being “better off dead”.
However, he had no significant history of mental health problems and no record of self-harm.
He had been due to return to work on the day he died.
That morning he sent “farewell messages” to his family, who went to check on him and found him dead.
The man’s wife later gained access to the Signal secure messaging account that had been installed on his phone.
She found images and messages shared with “Donna Chase”.
After the images were sent, “Donna” immediately threatened to send them to the man’s contacts and demanded money, via bank account transfer and codes for pre-paid Steam gift cards.
The summary said the man handed money over, but did not specify how much.
The exchanges with Donna, which included voice calls, ended with a final message from the man at 10.09am on the day he died.
The coroner said it was reasonable to conclude the man was in a highly emotional and vulnerable state when he ended his life.
“His actions would have been impulsive and taken in direct response to the difficult and stressful situation he found himself in.”
Man’s suicide a second ‘sextortion’ case
The man’s suicide was the second involving a sextortion attempt before the Coroners Court this year.
A teen who had dreams of becoming a policeman took his own life just hours after he was sexually extorted online in 2023.
The 18-year-old met a person on Facebook who called herself Laura Wilson, who wanted to exchange intimate images.
He had no way of knowing he was talking to a scammer in West Africa who then threatened to share the teen’s videos with all his contacts if he didn’t pay $5000.
The online safety organisation Netsafe advised Coroner Anderson that sextortion is a serious global issue and the scammers are highly organised professional criminals who can be based anywhere.
She said the Auckland man’s tragic death showed “the harm inflicted by those who engage in sextortion activities goes beyond extreme emotional distress and financial loss”.
“In this case, it led to the senseless loss of a father, partner and friend.”
Police advice for people caught in a sextortion scam is to pay nothing, to shut down all social media and contact Netsafe for further advice.
Netsafe has also published a step-by-step guide on how to deal with sextortion on its website.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay.
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