Police in Taiwan have arrested a man who posed as a homosexual in a scam in which he would find out the identity of gay men in chat rooms and then threaten to tell their familes or employers they were gay unless they gave him money. He extorted money from over one hundred gay men:

The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday sentenced a man to seven years’ imprisonment for extorting money from more than 100 homosexual men over the past two years, a radio station reported. Chou Ming-teh, 43, had been running a scam for two years in which, posing as a homosexual, he would meet men in Internet chat rooms and, as soon as the men had mentioned their names and where they worked, would threaten to tell their companies that they were gay unless they paid him money, the station said. “Over the past two years, Chou has extorted large sums of money from more than 100 gay men, and from some of them, he extorted money several times,” it said. “Chou carried out his crimes in Kaohsiung. His victims included teachers, military officers and bank managers, but none of them dared report him to police out of fear that they would be exposed,” the radio said. Chou was arrested after a police officer heard about Chou’s scheme and contacted him in the chat room, posing as a homosexual looking for sex. “Police called on Chou’s victims to come forward to testify against him, but none of them would do so for fear of exposure. It was only after the police threatened to summon them to the police station that some of them agreed to testify against Chou,” the radio station said.

So, basically the police had to extort testimony from the witnesses as well. I hope they are keeping the names of the cooperating witnesses out of the press.

This guy is basically a bottom-feeder. Unfortunately, now that his case has been made public, look for more copycat crimes of the like.