Bernards Police Warn Of 'Sextortion' Scam Involving Google Maps

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — The Bernards Township Police Department is warning residents about a new type of sextortion scam which may include a Google Maps photo of the victim's house.

In a recent Instagram and Facebook post, police said residents had reported receiving this email scam.

"Many police departments throughout the state, including ours, have had residents reporting receiving this scam email (shared from Secaucus PD), which would include a Google Maps image of their residence and/or their residence address in the narrative. Rest assured, it is a scam. Do NOT send any funds or communicate with the seller," wrote Bernards Township Police Department.

The police were referring to a post made by the Secaucus Police Department about sextortion emails that addressed residents by name and included images of their street or front yard that were apparently lifted from an online mapping application such as Google Maps.

"An old but persistent email scam known as 'sextortion' has a new personalized touch: The scammers, which claim that malware has captured webcam footage of recipients browsing habits or worse, now include a photo of the target’s home in a bid to make threats about publishing the videos more frightening and convincing," said Secaucus Police.

The hacker claims to have compromised a resident's computer and used their webcam to record a video of the resident while they were watching porn. The scammer then threatens to release the video to all of the resident's contacts unless they pay a Bitcoin ransom.

"Rest assured that this is a very common spam campaign and there is no truth behind the email or the threats. If they had a video of you, they would show it to you to prove that they have it," said Secaucus Police.

Bernards Township Police received one report of this type of scam reported on Sept. 8. The resident did not fall victim to the scam.

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