Officials at Boston College High School sent a letter home to parents warning them about an alleged extortion threat after someone posed as a teenage girl on Facebook in order to solicit personal information from a student.
The letter, sent out by Principal Steve Hughes, said an unknown individual using the name Sarah John on the social network initiated contact with a younger student in order to extract personal information about him, according to WBZ.
That same person is now threatening to publicly expose the “very personal” information if he doesn’t pay a significant amount of money as ransom.
“It’s a sad story, but some kids should just know better,” said Muigai Unaka, a senior at BC High, as he left school on Thursday.
Unaka said he was told during assemblies that the person behind the Sarah John account demanded somewhere between $2,000 and $10,000 from the student’s family.
“It seems like this person knew what they were doing and planned it out,” he said. “The principal told us it took place over the course of a couple months.”
According to reports, the school learned that Sarah John friended more than one student on Facebook from the private high school.
The suspect is believed to live outside of the country, according to the principal’s letter.
Officials said any students who have had similar interactions should contact police immediately.
Follow Steve Annear on Twitter @steveannear
