An Alabama man has pleaded guilty to federal charges of extortion, cyberstalking, and computer fraud following a three-year campaign in which he hijacked social media accounts belonging to hundreds of women and girls, then used their private images as leverage to extort them.
Jamarcus Mosley, 22, carried out the scheme between April 2022 and May 2025. He targeted his victims by impersonating people they trusted — friends, acquaintances — and manipulated them into surrendering account recovery codes and passwords. With those credentials, he seized control of accounts on Snapchat, Instagram, and other platforms. Once inside, he threatened to release private nude images and videos publicly unless victims met his demands: handing over access to additional accounts, producing sexually explicit content, or paying him money.
Federal prosecutors outlined several specific cases. In one, Mosley posed as a high school friend of a 20-year-old Georgia woman to obtain her Snapchat recovery code. After taking over her account and accessing her private media, he sent her a direct message stating he had obtained “65 videos and [a] picture of you about to get posted.” In another case, when an 18-year-old Florida woman refused to comply with his demands for additional nude photos, Mosley carried through on his threats and published her stolen images online. He then used a separate hacked account belonging to a 17-year-old Illinois girl to contact the Florida woman’s 13-year-old sister, sending a Snapchat map image that implied he knew her physical location.
The cases involve minors among the victims, a detail prosecutors emphasized in framing the severity of the conduct.
“Mosley is the dangerous online stranger who every parent fears,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. “By exploiting the trust of teens and young adults, Mosley hacked into their accounts to steal intimate and sexually suggestive images and extort them over a three-year period. This cruel, calculated scheme is the latest reminder that everyone must exercise great care with whom they interact online.”
Mosley is scheduled to be sentenced on May 27 before U.S. District Judge Michael L. Brown.
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His case follows a similar guilty plea entered earlier in February by Kyle Svara, 26, of Illinois, who admitted to hacking nearly 600 women’s Snapchat accounts through social engineering. Svara then sold or traded the stolen private images online.
The two cases, resolved within weeks of each other, reflect a broader pattern of social engineering-based account takeovers targeting individuals rather than institutions. Where corporate breaches typically exploit software vulnerabilities, these schemes relied on psychological manipulation — impersonation, false urgency, and misplaced trust — to gain access. The stolen material then became a tool of coercion.
For victims, the consequences extended beyond the initial account compromise. Images were posted publicly, younger family members were contacted, and geographic information was used to intimidate. The conduct Mosley admitted to spanned more than three years and crossed multiple state lines, drawing federal jurisdiction.
Source: Original reporting