Gavin Guffey was contacted online around midnight in July 2022 by someone posing as a young woman from a nearby college. Within 100 minutes, the 17-year-old South Carolina teen was dead, after the person behind the account demanded money and threatened to distribute intimate images he had exchanged with them. His father, state Rep. Brandon Guffey, says he had passed his son in the hallway just before that final call, unaware anything was wrong.
Guffey has spent the years since turning that loss into a legal and legislative fight. According to WOAI, Guffey is now pursuing litigation against Meta, alleging the company's platforms failed to adequately protect children and teens from predators like the one who targeted his son. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, alleges Meta failed to adequately protect children from such threats, according to WLTX.
Guffey alleges Meta failed to adequately respond to accounts connected to the person who allegedly targeted his son, and that the company did not immediately eliminate other accounts allegedly linked to the same individual. He says another account tied to the same person went on to target him, his 14-year-old cousin, his 16-year-old son, his wife, and dozens of other teenagers. Meta did remove one account following Gavin's death, per the report. It's worth noting that Guffey's allegations have not been established by a final court judgment.
A Scheme Federal Officials Say Operated Out of Nigeria
The scheme that targeted Gavin allegedly operated out of Lagos, Nigeria, according to the seed report. In January 2025, federal prosecutors extradited 24-year-old Nigerian national Hassanbunhussein Abolore Lawal to South Carolina to face a five-count federal indictment, including child exploitation resulting in death, in connection with the scheme that targeted Gavin, according to the Department of Justice. Lawal faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years to life, per CBS News. Lawal entered a not guilty plea during his initial court appearance in Columbia.
Financial sextortion, the scheme that killed Gavin, involves offenders who pose as other teenagers online before demanding money after obtaining explicit images and threatening to release them. Guffey says he had discussed drugs and sexual activity with his son but had not discussed sextortion with him specifically. He now urges other parents to have that conversation with their teens before a crisis occurs, rather than after.
Gavin's Law and the Push for Statutory Protection
The tragedy pushed Guffey, already a South Carolina state representative, to help champion legislation named in his son's honor. Gavin's Law, formally H. 3583, was signed by Governor Henry McMaster on May 18, 2023, strengthening sexual-extortion penalties and making the offense a felony, according to the South Carolina School Boards Association. The law mandates that local school districts collaborate with state education and law enforcement officials to educate students on the threat. According to the South Carolina Department of Education, school districts were notified about Gavin's Law.
Guffey also founded the Less Than 3 (<3) Foundation, according to the Future Caucus. The foundation is named Less Than 3 (<3). Guffey has said children's protection should be prioritized over profits, and that the success of his lawsuit should ultimately be measured by how many parents can safely tuck in their children at night.
Meta's $18 Billion Settlement and New Safeguards
Guffey's case has unfolded against the backdrop of a much larger reckoning for Meta. Per the seed report, Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle claims brought by states, and the company is set to implement new restrictions on how teenagers use Facebook and Instagram, including late-night access restrictions and a shutoff-at-midnight feature currently under discussion. Separately, Meta has faced scrutiny over child safety and platform addictiveness.
Guffey has said, however, that parental controls and time restrictions alone do not address the criminals actively targeting children through social media. Legal scrutiny in cases like his has focused on platform design, recommendation algorithms, messaging systems and engagement features across social media platforms including Meta, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok, per the report.
A Crisis Measured in Tens of Thousands of Reports
The scale of the problem has grown sharply. Sextortion has increased dramatically since Gavin Guffey's death, per the seed report. The FBI has warned families about financially motivated sextortion schemes targeting minors, noting that teenage boys are among those targeted. The FBI has continued warning families about the schemes.
National warnings have underscored the seriousness of the problem. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has reported on financially motivated sextortion involving minors. The organization has also warned about the consequences of online financial sextortion schemes. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has also addressed online enticement, a broader category that includes online exploitation threats.
Federal regulators have started targeting the money trail behind these schemes. NCMEC also operates Take It Down, a service mentioned in reports about responses to online exploitation. The supplied report does not mention Meta funding the service. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, families can report suspected online exploitation at CyberTipline.org and use its Take It Down service.
For Guffey, described by those close to him as a teenager looking toward his future before his death, none of those tools arrived in time. His father continues to press the message that shaped his advocacy from the start: talk to your kids about sextortion now, before it becomes an emergency.
