It's commonly known as catfishing, where someone creates a fake online persona.
This fictional persona can be used to groom and entice children on the internet, often with real world effects.
It's what Alexander McCartney did - to a utterly devastating degree.
"Well, certainly one of the worst I've ever seen, and I've seen cases across the globe linked to people exploiting the young and vulnerable online," said Jim Gamble, a retired police officer and an expert on how to spot fake online profiles.
He has this advice, for young people and parents alike, on what to look out for when chatting to someone online, to make sure they really are the person they say they are.
Tell-Tale Signs
Too good to be true?
"If you are a young person ... and if you're engaging with someone who you think is way out of your league, if it seems too good to be true, chances are it is too good to be true."
Same Interests
"If you have an obscure interest, whether it be in sport or in music or something else, and that person who's engaging with you has that identical interest? It's not just a coincidence, it's too much of a coincidence ... All of this is fishing - to catch your interest, so they're targeting it ... Your antenna needs to be up, and you need to be thinking, who am I talking to?"
No Calls
"Someone involved in traditional catfishing is not going to video call you. They're seldom even going to voice call you because it might disclose who they really are. They never want to phone, or they never will agree to FaceTime. There's always an excuse."
Asking for Intimate Images
"Alarm bells should ring if they ask you to send, you know, an intimate image, a sexualised image to them. The issue is, though, in today's world where our young people grow up, that actually has been normalised in relationships.
"So, it's not that abnormal for teenagers and young adults to share images in a relationship. The key is that you're not actually in a relationship, you're on a pathway to exploitation. So, never share an image."
Offering Friendship
"In the moment, the idea the predator has is to make you feel comfortable, to make you feel confident. They're targeting you many times because they think you're perhaps isolated or alienated or unhappy at home. They’re going to give you a gift, and it's the gift of friendship. And you'd be amazed at how many young people really want that gift."
Limited Images
"They're going to have very few images (of themselves) because they've harvested the images from other people or manipulated them using artificial intelligence to create a persona and an image that they think you will like."
Become A Digital Detective
Jim Gamble says you should become a 'digital detective' to ensure you are not being manipulated.
"You need to begin searching for them online ... and if you don't find any images, or the images that you do find that look like the one that you're talking to, or they're professional headshots ... then become even more suspicious, because who doesn't have a social media footprint?"
He says another thing to do is a Google reverse image search.
How to Fix it
Jim Gamble has this advice for children who have become a victim of online enticement.
"The sooner a young person comes forward, the sooner these things can be resolved. What goes online doesn't have to stay online ... Things can be fixed. The sooner you come forward, the sooner they can be addressed, buried or removed. But the important thing is that you feel confident enough as a young person to come forward to your parents or another trusted adult.
"The police will always deal with this type of case extremely sympathetically. And from a child centred perspective, because by coming forward, by highlighting your concern or suspicion, you're actually helping keep other children and other families safe."
