In 2015, Ford was charged with sextortion and cyberstalking scheme — Now, he has been sent to prison for four years and nine months
An employee of the U.S. State Department involved in a huge sex racket at the U.S. Embassy in London. It all began one fine day, by a young victim’s complaint, who was from Kentucky and went on to report to the Police about being harassed by a cyber-stalker, who breached her email and was threatening to expose her private photos to her family members, if she did not do his bidding.
Her ordeal was later narrated by FBI Special Agent Andrew Young, who interrogated some of the hundreds of victims under attack by Michael C. Ford, an ex-State Department civilian worker. Ford was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment on 21 March, for breaking into the e-mail accounts of young women to blackmail them.
Ford is said to have hacked into at least 450 e-mail accounts and self-confessed to blackmailing no less than 75 women, bullying and intimidating them to publicly circulate exposing pictures least they have private correspondence with him.
What in fact happened was that around January 2013 and May 2015, Ford who then worked in London pretended to be a member of a large web company’s “account deletion team” and sent out tons of warning e-mails to women asking them to submit their account passwords else their accounts would be deleted. The imposter Ford then used the passwords to compromise targets’ e-mail and social media accounts to hunt for their naked pictures and personal contacts and address information.
“The sentencing of Mr. Ford will not only hold him accountable for his despicable criminal conduct but will also deny him the ability to further victimize others. The FBI is proud of the role that it played in bringing this case forward for investigation, apprehension, and federal prosecution and it is hoped that those who were victimized by Mr. Ford will find some relief with this sentencing,” said J. Britt Johnson, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Atlanta Field Office.
In Kentucky the first complaint surfaced and the local police immediately contacted the FBI in Louisville, where the source of the threatening emails was traced back to a State Department server in London. An internal probe was initiated by the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) that led to Ford and disclosed the huge CYBER STALKING AND SEXTORTION scam. It also exposed that Ford misused government computer to blackmailing an entire lot of women.
FBI’s agent Young interviewed the angry victims, who investigated the case from the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office and stated that the whole scam-scarred the victims as they felt brutally exposed.
In another turn of events, it was discovered Ford was an old menace as even back in 2009 he posed as a talent agent and explored aspiring model’s websites where wannabe’s posted their pictures and contact information. He tricked young women into sharing their personal information, measurements and date of birth with him and probed into their accounts with just a link. Ford is now a convicted felon as his trial began last month, there are enough witnesses and forensic evidence to put him behind bars.