Hacker Behind 'Jeanson J. Ancheta' Email Scam Uses Sextortion to Make Money

The devious 'Jeanson J. Ancheta' Email Scam was set up by a schemer – or a group of schemers – who want your money, and they are willing to tell you a shocking lie to get it. The truth is, although the message sent to you might seem personal, most likely, it has been sent to many others. The more people the schemers approach, the better their chances of finding real victims are. Needless to say, most people who face this message will know that it is part of a scam, and they will delete it from their inbox instantly. Better yet, they will report a scam and block the sender before deleting it. That is what you are supposed to do. Unfortunately, some people are more gullible and, therefore, are more likely to get scammed. Hopefully, you have removed 'Jeanson J. Ancheta' Email from your inbox, but if you feel stuck, please continue reading this report, and we will ease your mind.

When schemers initiate their attacks, they are unlikely to have specific targets or know anything about them. Of course, there are more sophisticated scams that are directly targeted at certain companies, governments, or communities, but that is unlikely to be the case with the 'Jeanson J. Ancheta' Email Scam. Most likely, the attackers behind it have stolen or purchased a list of legitimate email addresses, and they have sent the same misleading message to them all. They do not care whether they approach a man or a woman, an adult or a child, an English-speaking user or not. All that they care about is that at least a few of the recipients of the 'Jeanson J. Ancheta' Email Scam message are tricked into believing that it is real. The subject line of the message reads, “My name is Jeanson James Ancheta, AKA ancheta-2yo on darkweb!” If you do a quick web search, you can learn that Jeanson James Ancheta was the first hacker to be charged for hacking computers and controlling botnets in the United States. He was sent to prison in 2006, and while he has completed his sentence, he is not behind the scam. Who would be so stupid to use their own name, right?

According to the 'Jeanson J. Ancheta' Email Scam message, the “best hacker” has hacked your email account 10 months ago and was able to monitor your activity. The message goes on to tell a boring little tale of how the hacker wanted to encrypt your files and then demand a ransom – which is a common scam these days – but then noticed you visiting “dirty websites.” Allegedly, the hacker was able to hijack your camera and record you, and now he can send the video to everyone on your email contacts list unless you pay a ransom. This ridiculous and completely bogus story is meant to trick you into purchasing $650 worth of Bitcoin and transferring it to one of the attacker’s Bitcoin wallets within 36 hours. According to our research team, two wallet addresses (13z8jRK5z9PkVdim6nfmH4Qqqk6UAmycJr and 1NJAqyvy8zJYrnD2x9kox1BqYgfu7Zpdrz) have been linked to the 'Jeanson J. Ancheta' Email Scam, and both had a few transactions made to them at the time of research. We cannot know whether victims of the scam had transferred the money, but that is a possibility.

What happens if you pay the ransom? The attacker will be satisfied, but that does not mean that your worries will be over. At the end of the day, the schemer behind 'Jeanson J. Ancheta' Email Scam could use the same threats to demand money from you again and again and again. Even if the scammer had a compromising video of you – which they do not – they could continue terrorizing you. Obviously, you do NOT want to waste your money. Communicating with the schemer is a terrible idea too, because while they are shooting in the dark by sending the same message to hundreds or maybe thousands of addresses, they could become more aggressive and more direct if they knew that they had a real person on the other end of their devious scam.

The smartest thing you can do is delete 'Jeanson J. Ancheta' Email Scam message, but, as we mentioned before, you should report it and also block the sender beforehand. That will ensure that your email provider knows what is going on, and you will not receive the same stupid email again. Of course, the attacker could use a different account or even a different message altogether to trick you, but you will know better know. Keep in mind that, in some cases, scam emails are very convincing and misleading, and so you should never let your guard down.