Students Threatened Via Social Media To Pay $1K Or Be Harmed: Prince George's Police

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MD — Four middle school students received messages through Instagram and TikTok recently, informing them that they would be hurt if they failed to pay $1,000 each to the person threatening them, authorities said Wednesday.

Parents were warned about online threats and extortion attempts being made via the social media apps against at least four middle schoolers. Prince George's County Police in a news release urged parents to report similar threats against kids immediately to authorities.

Four students at a county middle school received demands via their social media accounts to pay $1,000 or face harm. When the children refused to pay, more messages were sent with images of the children’s homes taken from Google Maps, police said.

The name of the school is not being released by police in orders to protect the identities of the victims and discourage similar schemes targeting students.

Officers were alerted after the school learned of the threats and contacted school security. The children’s parents were immediately notified and picked up their children.

Parents should monitor their children’s use of social media and limit their activities on the platforms, police said.

Any extortion threats targeting kids should be reported to police immediately. People should not attempt to handle the issue on their own. No one should ever pay money to someone making a threat, authorities said.

The middle-schoolers are from Spanish-speaking families and possibly targeted because of that, police told WTOP.