Financial sextortion cases have victimized teens in our community. Financial sextortion is a crime that involves children and teens being coerced into sending explicit images online and extorted for money.

Financial sextortion schemes occur in online environments where young people feel most comfortable—using common social media sites, gaming sites, or video chat applications that feel familiar and safe. The extortion begins when the perpetrator befriends the victim posing as someone their age on social media, then at some point asks the victim to share explicit photos of themselves. In the most common cases we have seen, teenage boys have been the most common targets, with the online predators often using fake female accounts. Once predators acquire the images, they threaten to release the compromising material to friends and family unless the victim sends money or gift cards, often through peer-to-peer payment applications.

Young people can take a variety of simple, everyday actions to be cyber safe and better protect against online threats. This includes talking with parents, caregivers, and educators so they understand online risks, only chatting with people they know in real-life, ensuring their online accounts are private, blocking people they don’t know or trust, and trusting their instinct if something or someone makes them feel uncomfortable.

If young people are being exploited, they are victims of a crime and should report it to their local law enforcement agency.

Steps to take if you or your child are a victim of sextortion: 

• Remember, the predator is to blame, not your child or you.
• Get help before deciding whether to pay money or otherwise comply with the predator. Cooperating or paying rarely stops the blackmail and continued harassment.
• Report the predator’s account via the platform’s safety feature.
• Block the predator and do not delete the profile or messages because that can be helpful to law enforcement in identifying and stopping them.
• Ask for help. This can be a very complex problem and may require help from adults or law enforcement.

Steps adapted from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). For more information, https://www.missingkids.org/theissues/sextortion or reach out to NCMEC for support at gethelp@ncmec.org or call NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST.

Please take a moment to learn how sextortion works and how to talk to your children about it. Information, resources, and conversation guides are available at fbi.gov/sextortion.