Conflict Incident Report

A Lebanese man and his Syrian wife were arrested for allegedly blackmailing individuals who the couple recorded having sex with accomplices, the Internal Security Forces reported in a statement Monday.
“On 22/6/2018, a resident in south Lebanon claimed that he had been blackmailed by people who threatened to publish videos filmed while he was having sexual relations with a female,” the statement said, and that the suspects had demanded $25,000 from that victim in exchange for not publishing the videos online.
After investigations, the ISF’s Information Branch identified three suspects in the sextortion ring. The statement said that on June 27, the ISF arrested the first suspect in Beirut’s southern suburbs alongside his Syrian wife. The Lebanese man, identified as M.Aa., had identification documents belonged to his brother, which he used to try to avoid arrest.
During interrogations, he admitted to committing three acts of extortion with his wife, in which the two filmed a third suspect - a Lebanese man identified as J.Kh. - having sex with “well-off people who were carefully selected to extort them physically.”
The statement did not say if J.Kh. had been apprehended.
M.Aa. confessed that the three had previously extorted $5,000 in one blackmail attempt but failed with the two other schemes. His wife confirmed her husband's confession, according to the statement.