Advertisement

Amanda Todd online bullying leads to arrest in Netherlands: report

A man has been arrested in the Netherlands in connection with the online sexual extortion of Amanda Todd, the B.C. teen who killed herself in October 2012, a Dutch media outlet is reporting.

Officials at the Dutch Embassy have confirmed media reports that a 35-year-old man was taken into custody in January and made his first court appearance Wednesday.

An embassy official said the man is accused of being behind a case that garnered international attention and involved the harassment and cyberbullying of a 15-year-old girl from B.C., but would not confirm the alleged victim was Todd.

The Dutch media organization Omroep Brabant published the news today and identified Todd as the victim.

The journalist who broke the story in the Netherlands, Mathijs Pennings, told CBC News that a "very reliable source" confirmed the Todd connection.

He said man arrested is a Dutch national of Turkish descent and is accused of blackmailing numerous minors after recording their webcam activities. He is also alleged to have extorted older male victims for money.

His alleged victims include individuals from Europe, the U.K. and Canada, Pennings said.

The man, who has not been identified, allegedly told the Canadian girl to undress in front of a webcam, which she did, and then he saved those images in order to blackmail her, Omroep Brabant reported.

Carol Todd, Amanda's mother, told CBC that she was in shock at the news. She said RCMP told her there was an overseas development in the case two months ago but didn't want to comment further until she had the chance to speak to B.C. RCMP later today.

"There were multiple people in those chat rooms," she said. "So this would hopefully be the first layer of many layers that they could uncover."

RCMP have scheduled a news conference for 5 p.m. PT in Surrey, B.C., and have said members of Todd's family will be in attendance.