Cheikh Touré died after being lured abroad in one of a growing number of extortion schemes tricking talented teenagers with dreams of making it big
T
he last time Diodo Sokhna spoke to her teenage son, he seemed subdued, his voice sapped of all the optimism he had set off with on a journey supposed to put him on the road to a career as a professional footballer.
After that call Cheikh Touré went silent. His mother’s WhatsApp messages to his phone received only the dreaded single tick, indicating they had not been received. Soon afterwards a man with a foreign accent rang her from a number she did not recognise. He told Sokhna her son was dead and then hung up.
“I screamed. My son was dead and I am broken,” she says. “They killed my only son.”
