A man who authorities say tricked women into posing nude on the Skype internet video service has been arrested in Glendale.
The U.S. Attorney's office on Tuesday said that the FBI had arrested a 27-year-old whom it confirmed was named Karen "Gary" Kazaryan, saying he had hacked into hundreds of women's Facebook accounts and trolled them for naked pictures.
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He then posed as the women online and persuaded their friends to send naked pictures of themselves or appear in the nude on Skype, the U.S. Attorney's office said in a press release.
"It was a horrifying, humiliating, terrible experience for these women," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Wilkison. "It's a case that we take extremely seriously."
"One of the women described the entire thing as like rape," Wilkison said.
Investigators found about 3,000 pictures of nude or semi-nude women on Kazaryan's computer.
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The U.S. Attorney's office said that if the women did not take off their clothes for him on Skype, he hacked into their Facebook accounts and posted nude pictures that he already had in his possession.
He was arrested on federal computer hacking charges and could face up to 105 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
The alleged "sextortion" case, as federal investigators have dubbed it, dates back to 2009.
Authorities say they have not yet found all of the alleged victims in the case, and urge women who think they may have been targeted by Kazaryan to contact the FBI's Los Angeles field office at 310-477-6565.
