EXCLUSIVE - 'I trick stupid men into stripping naked then performing SEX acts on Skype': Chilling confession of 'Sextortion Queen' in Philippines who uses striptease and sordid sex-texts to blackmail Westerners online

• Gang 'boss' in Philippines reveals sordid secrets of blackmailing men with sex
• Teenagers trawl internet looking for professional men to 'friend' on Facebook
• Then they play them recorded video of Asian woman performing a striptease
• 'Sextortion' gang then convinces them to perform a sex act - that they record  
• Jailed Maria Caparas boasts that it takes just 30 minutes to get men to strip
• Gang is Manila is blamed for suicide of 17-year-old Daniel Perry in Scotland 

The alleged boss of a blackmail 'Sextortion' gang has revealed how she tricks 'stupid' men into stripping off via webcam - and revealed the vile secrets of her trade.

'Queen of Sextortion' Maria Caparas-Regalachuelo, who is accused of using girls as young as 13, boasted that it takes just 30 minutes to trick western men into getting naked then performing a sex act via Skype.

Her gang is blamed for the suicide of 17-year-old Daniel Perry who leapt to his death in Scotland in August 2013 after being told by his online tormentors he would be 'better off dead'.

Speaking in a squalid Philippines prison cell, Caparas revealed that her gang of 'chatters' trawl Facebook for victims, sending men flirtatious messages before asking them to go 'somewhere private'. 

They show the men a pre-recorded video of an Asian woman performing a striptease and then send them a stream of filthy text messages.

Caparas admitted that she worked as a 'chatter' herself, adding: 'Chatters' are mostly young girls, some as young as 13, and transgender men. They work to a prepared text to coax victims.

'We tease them to get them comfortable and we work to a prepared text.' 

The 'chatter' then captures the victim performing a sex act on camera and uploads the video to an unlisted YouTube page.

The chatter's boss then gets in touch with the victim and threatens to send the link to the video to family and friends via Facebook if they do not pay blackmail demands.

Victims of Caparas's gang in North Hills Village – a poverty-racked village with a population of 1,500 – are believed to include a millionaire Asian pop star and a tycoon's son who paid £150,000 in repeated blackmail demands before going to police.

Former slum dweller Caparas, who was arrested for a second time in September, denies being the gang's ringleader, insisting that she was just a 'chatter' and not the syndicate boss.

Explaining how the scam worked, Caparas, who is awaiting trial for exploiting minors to work in the Sextortion gang, said: 'We tease them to get them comfortable and we work to a prepared text.

'Some of the chatters can barely speak English and many are young gay men but they only communicate by text and show pre-recorded video so the victim never knows.

'It only takes about 30 minutes of chat before they are persuaded to do things in front of camera. They nearly always pay up after we put the video on YouTube.

'I did feel sorry for some victims. In one case I told my victim 'Don't flirt on the internet again. Look what happens. I even blocked one victim on Skype to stop him getting any demands for more money from my boss.'

Caparas, who is suspected to be continuing to run her syndicate from behind bars, told Mail Online: 'I am ashamed of what I did. I am so sorry for the victims,' she said.

'I was terribly shocked and sad when I hear what happened to the boy in Scotland. I don't know anything about him but I'm very sad for his family's loss. 

Weeping tears of self-pity as she squatted on the floor of the overcrowded women's block in Bulacan Provincial Jail, mother-of-five Caparas she said: 'I have to sleep in the hallway at night. I'm praying to Jesus to let me be with my kids again. I ask for forgiveness.

'Please have a heart for me. I love my children and I have put them to shame. I have promised them I will give up Cybercrime and stay at home and run my shop.'

Caparas insisted: 'How could an uneducated woman like me organise a criminal syndicate?'

But when asked what she thought of her victims falling for the scam, she replied cynically: 'They are stupid.

'When I talk to them after they have paid their first blackmail demand I would tell them: 'Don't do it again – you have learnt a lesson from your mistakes.'

Caparas insisted she had nothing to do with Daniel's death and implausibly claimed to have worked as a 'chatter' for only eight months, making 800,000 pesos (£13,000), before giving up after her first arrest in 2014 following Daniel's death.

But we found damning evidence of her role at the heart of the syndicate – including pictures of her 13-year-old son covered in bank notes in an apparent taunt to villagers opposing her cybercrime activities.

Another pictures shows a group of her 'chatters' celebrating their earnings at a Christmas party while wearing T-shirts in honour of their boss Caparas, calling themsevles the Ceecelle All Stars. Ceecelle is one of a number of aliases used by Caparas. 

In a tasteless joke at the expense of their desperate victims, the back of the T-shirt features the symbol that pops up on Skype when a victim has blocked a 'chatter' with the words 'We hate this' beneath it.

Cybercrime profits, Caparas – said by neighbours to have bought a fleet of cars and up to 10 houses around the area with her Sextortion earnings – handed out gifts of flat-screen TVs, iPhones, iPads and Samsung smart phones as raffle prizes at the party, one witness said.

Another shows piles of notes in a billiards room full of computer terminals at her North Hills Village home where her team of 'chatters' are said to have operated.

The gloating images were found on Facebook accounts operated by Caparas and her family when police seized computers from her home in a 2014 raid. Investigators also found dozens of fake ID cards used to collect blackmail payments from Western Union money transfer offices.

Police found that around £800,000 had been sent to a single Western Union money-transfer branch from hundreds of Sextortion victims worldwide in the space of just nine months before her 2014 arrest.

Caparas's gang is believed to have blackmailed at least 500 victims, usually for sums ranging from £200 to £15,000 with demands continuing until terrified victims run out of money or go to police.

Charges against Caparas were dropped amid suspicions that she bribed officials but she was rearrested in 2016 as the Sextortion activities continued and international pressure on the Philippines police mounted.

Caparas – who like many wealthier Filipino inmates is able to keep a smart phone in jail by bribing warders to turn a blind eye – contacted Mail Online to deny being the ringleader after we reported her role at the heart of the syndicate in December. 

Using the Facebook alias Marie Celle Caparas she invited us to see her in prison where she revealed chilling details of how the Sextortion scam works while protesting she was not the ringleader.

However, residents in North Hills Village insisted Caparas was the mastermind and said she graduated to Sextortion after making money from live sex chats with foreigners soon after she relocated to the village 10 years ago.

'This is a poor village made up of people relocated from the Manila slums but look around and you'll see all the young kids have designer clothes,' one resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fears of retribution from Caparas's gang.

'That's because 70 per cent of the households here make their money from Sextortion. The only difference is they do it from their own homes rather since Caparas was arrested. It's still going on because it's easy money and money means everything in a place like this.' 

The gang's activities are thought to have contributed to a surge in 'Sextortion' cases in Britain with four more suicides in 2016 and a doubling of reported cases compared to 2015. Gangs in Morocco and the Ivory Coast have also joined in the sinister crime wave.