It was certainly more lucrative than working an afterschool job. And it entailed so much less effort.
Unfortunately for the 15-year-old from Gaines Township, Mich., who earned $1,100 by selling sexually explicit nude photos and videos of herself on the Internet, her mother got wind of the operation and contacted the police.
The unnamed teen should consider herself lucky. According to the Detroit Free Press, the Kent County Sheriff’s Department says it has investigated more than a half-dozen cases in 2015 in which sexual predators persuaded unsuspecting children to send them pornographic photos.
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In one instance, someone posing as pop star Justin Bieber asked a 9-year-old girl to send him nude photos.
In the Gaines Township case, the girl told detectives she had been selling the salacious photos and videos for about a year, and had sold to four or five customers the previous month, some of them repeat customers.
“Men would then contact her via the social media platform Kik and ask what she was selling,” Kent County Sheriff’s Det. Matthew Batchelder wrote in a search warrant affidavit to retrieve on-line account information of those who purchased images and videos.
The men knew she was underage, Batchelder further noted, adding that the teen could not elaborate on how they knew.
Images and videos were sent to customers via her Google Gmail account and she was paid through PayPal. She did not send images until after receiving payment, court records show.
So far, no arrests have been made.
