A recent report has shown that financial sextortion schemes are on the rise and teenage boys are the primary targets.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) received an average of 812 sextortion reports per week between August 2022 and August 2023, with more than two-thirds of these reports being “financially motivated,” according to a new report.
The report defines sextortion as the act of “threatening to expose sexual images of someone if they don’t yield to demands.”
The report, jointly released by technology firm Thorn and the NCMEC on June 24, examined information received by NCMEC’s CyberTipline between 2020 and 2023.
Previous research has found that girls are more likely to be victims of sextortion with demands for additional intimate imagery, sexual acts, or relationships.
However, there has been an increase in financial sextortion cases in recent years, which predominantly affects boys. The report found that 90 percent of financial sextortion victims are teenage boys aged 14 to 17.
“Unlike traditional forms of sextortion, these perpetrators demand money, leveraging fear and the threat of sharing intimate images to extort their victims before they have time to seek support,” Thorn CEO Julie Cordua said in a press release.
She said the report underscored the “urgent need for layered protections” to safeguard children online and serves as a reminder for parents to talk about online risks with their children.
The report said the most common method of contact involved “catfishing,” in which a perpetrator impersonates another young person “to manipulate a teenage boy into sharing sexual images or videos of himself.”
“That perpetrator then threatens to share that imagery with family, friends, or followers unless they are paid,” the report states.
Between October 2021 and March 2023, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations received more than 13,000 reports of “online financial sextortion of minors,” involving 12,600 victims, most of whom were boys.
“For financially motivated sextortion, victims are typically males between the ages of 14 to 17, but any child can become a victim,” the FBI stated in a Jan. 16 statement.
The FBI also warned that financial sextortion schemes could trigger self-harm and potential suicide among victims, stating that the reported cases resulted in at least 20 suicides.
“If your child is targeted, tell them they are not in trouble and they are not alone. Block the predator, do not delete the profile or messages and contact law enforcement,” special agent in charge Jeffrey B. Veltri, of the FBI’s Miami Field Office, said.
Social Media Platforms Used in Sextortion Schemes
Sextortion perpetrators often use the social media platform Instagram to initiate contact with children, accounting for 45.1 percent of cases, according to the report. Other platforms include Snapchat (31.6 percent) and Facebook (7.1 percent).About 65 percent of children reported attempts from the perpetrator to move from a public chat to a private conversation on a different platform, where they were more likely to share compromising content. The report said that Snapchat is the most common platform used for these private chats, likely due to its disappearing direct messaging feature.
Perpetrators then extort money through various payment methods such as gift cards and Cash App. The report found that many financial sextortion cases were linked to criminal groups in Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire.
“Paying the perpetrator can lead to continued harassment,” Ms. Cordua said. “The best course of action in these situations is to not pay, to report the sextortion to NCMEC, law enforcement, and the platform where it occurred, and block the offender.”
In August last year, two Nigerian men were extradited to the United States after being indicted for their alleged roles in a sextortion scheme that resulted in the suicide of 17-year-old Jordan DeMay. He was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in March 2022.
The defendants allegedly tricked the Michigan teenager into sending explicit images of himself and then threatened to post the images on social media unless he paid them money, according to the Department of Justice.
