Dec 22, 2022 3 min read

Reports of the online enticement of minors have dramatically spiked in recent months – including reports of sextortion, which occurs when a child is threatened or blackmailed, usually online, by a person demanding sexual content or money from the child.

This may happen when a child shares an image with someone they thought they knew or trusted, but the individual has gained the child’s trust through deceit, coercion, or deception (and sometimes, predators falsely claim that they have obtained photos that the child may have shared with someone else). Once predators acquire the images, they threaten to release them unless the victim sends additional images, money, or gift cards.

The shame, fear, and confusion that victims experience when they are caught in this cycle often prevents them from asking for help or reporting the abuse.

Sextortion schemes occur in online environments where young people feel most comfortable, including social media or gaming sites, or video chat applications. On these platforms, online predators often use fake female accounts and target boys between 14- and 17-years old but victims as young as 10 years old have been interviewed.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, in partnership with Homeland Security Investigations – Philadelphia (HSI), the FBI in Pittsburgh and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), issued a public safety alert regarding the increase in cases on Tuesday.

NCME has outlined steps parents and young people can take if they or their child are a victim of sextortion, including:

n Get help before deciding whether to pay money or otherwise comply with the predator. Cooperating or paying rarely stops the blackmail and continued harassment.

n Report the predator’s account via the platform’s safety feature.

n Block the predator and do not delete the profile or messages because that can be helpful to law enforcement in identifying and stopping them.

n If a victim does not feel that they have adults in their corner, the child can reach out directly to NCMEC for support at gethelp@ncmec.org or call NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST.

Resource modules with discussion guides about how to talk to children about sextortion can be found at: https://www.missingkids.org/blog/2022/sextortion-the-hidden-pandemic. Additional information, resources, and conversation guides are available at fbi.gov/StopSextortion.

To report child predators or suspicious activity, contact HSI at 1-866-347-2423 or by completing its online tip form, or contact the FBI at 412-432-4000, 1-800-CALL-FBI, or online at tips.fbi.gov.