He is a paying customer... wow unbelievable.

Why can the police/FBI help in this case, given all the threads and demands? Were they contacted and informed of the situation?

Yes he has a FBI complaint id and met with them. Basically the FBI said there is nothing they can do. I'm going to get him to contact the journalist for this article and see if there is another FBI agent he can work with. Sprint wouldn't work with him at all and only after dozens of calls did they start to help him get his number back. (The entire number was in the process of being ported). We didn't even think about him being SWAT'd until I read this article. The threats were specifically towards his parents. If anybody has any suggestions please let me know.

> My friend is a paid customer of Google Apps. In part of the process he called called Google Apps, and they immediately disabled his Apps account but -- but they couldn't or wouldn't do anything else including helping him escalate to the right people

I would be calling sales and support until I got someone who could do something. I would call any number related to Google - including for services not even related to gmail.

> Meanwhile the scammer is making threats to his family and pretending to be him send out emergency BTC loan requests and resetting bank passwords.

But if his account is disabled how is the scammer sending out emails?

> He could be SWAT'd at any moment.

That is very unlikely and if it did it would have to churn through the legal system first.

> a trivial 5 minute look at the account and seeing the ransom artist texting him

That is a sticky situation - many would argue that Google shouldn't read another user's email. And that's probably why support is an issue.

the ransom artist is in full control of the account and sending out emails and text (through google voice) as him. His account is not disabled. The google Apps access account is not the same as his Gmail account, that is where you might be confused. The apps access is disabled. He is an active member of the bitcoin community just like the two bitcoin members mentioned in the article, where one of them got swatted, for about the same ransom amount. It could be related. Obviously he was targeted to some extent because the attacker knew he had BTC. Google Gmail end user license agreement specifically allows google to read your emails. My point is they could do a better job, they just don't care. You can't trust them, they don't have any financial incentive to treat you as a real human person. Right now Google ads is happily serving ads to right of my friend's gmail account while ransom artist is using the account, and google is making money off those clicks -- that's all they care about. Ultimately, there is no human dimension in their company vision.