The mastermind behind the deadly Blue Whale Challenge has finally been arrested. She is a 17-year-old Russian girl, who remains unidentified by the authorities.
The teenager allegedly threatened her victims that she would murder them or their families if they did not complete the tasks that were set. The victims were eventually forced to commit suicide at the end of the game.
The Blue Whale Challenge targets those who are depressed and turns suicide into a thrilling game. After agreeing to sign up, the ‘players’ are set tasks for 50 days, that include self-harm, watching horror movies alone, carving a whale on their arm. Their final to ask on the 50th day is to end their lives.
The game has caused over 130 suicides around the world.
Russian police released a footage of a raid on the girl’s house in far-east Russia, where they found portraits of Philipp Budeikin, a Russian psychology student who is behind bars after he confessed to inventing the challenge. Budeikin was sentenced to three years in a Russian jail.
According to Russian police, the girl initially played the game but did not complete it by committing suicide. Instead, she turned into an administrator on the site, where she provoked others to complete the tasks.
“This administrator was sending particular tasks – often life-threatening – to each of several dozen members of the group,’ Colonel Irina Volk of the Russian interior ministry was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. “In contrast to similar groups, teenagers in this group were blackmailed with death threats against them or their relatives for not completing the tasks.”
In July, Russian police nabbed a 26-year-old man accused of being the brain behind a suicide cult resembling the Blue Whale Challenge. Ilya Sidorov, arrested from Moscow, was accused of encouraging vulnerable young children to harm themselves and finally commit suicide.
