Today, when an estimated 84 percent of children between the ages of 13 and 18 are using social media and a surprising number of even younger children are also online,¹ thousands of them are becoming victims of a horrific crime: financial sextortion.

This exploitation of our nation’s young people has become such a large problem that in December 2022, the FBI partnered with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to issue a national public safety alert.

In that year alone, law enforcement received over 7,000 reports related to the online financial sextortion of minors, resulting in at least 3,000 victims² and causing more than a dozen suicides. But authorities believe the actual number of sextortion cases to be far larger than that.

Preying Upon Children and Teenagers

Most often, the targets are boys between the ages of 14 and 17. Online predators posing as kids of the same age, usually as attractive girls, develop relationships with them on social media, gaming sites, and video chats.

After sending them risqué photos or videos, the perpetrators use flattery or other enticements to persuade these children to share nude photos or sexual videos of themselves.

Once they receive the compromising images, the perpetrators threaten to share them with everybody on the child’s contact list, unless they are paid hundreds of dollars or more. But, even after receiving payment, which is usually sent as gift cards or from online bank accounts, the predators may continue to harass their victims.

Shame and fear often keep the children from telling their parents what has happened. In addition to worrying about their family’s reaction, they may be afraid that they have broken a law and will be arrested.

If their parents have been told, the same fears and worries may stop them from reporting it. But though teenage sexting is a felony offense in many states, these children should be seen as victims, not criminals.

Assistance for State and Local Law Enforcement

It’s an insidious crime that usually flies under the radar of local and state law enforcement, but police and sheriff’s offices can help to stop it through preventive public awareness programs and collaboration with the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force of the United States Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).

ICAC has representatives in every state with a national network of 61 task forces representing more than 5,400 federal, state, and local law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies.

Each task force has affiliated agencies which help state and local law enforcement develop effective responses to online child victimization. In 2021, ICAC conducted more than 137,000 investigations and 90,300 forensic exams, resulting in the arrests of more than 10,400 individuals.

In addition to providing technical assistance and investigative support, ICAC also offers training, victim services, and community education.

How Law Enforcement Can Respond

Asked how police departments can help to prevent these incidents, former ICAC Commander Joe Laramie, now a Program Manager with the National Criminal Justice Training Center, and an OJJDP grantee said, “Officers can go to schools, faith groups, and community organizations to build awareness and educate kids and their parents.

“ICAC can provide guidance for holding these meetings, as well as information and resources that can be passed on to the community on the agency’s web site or Facebook pages.

“Police need to drive home the pervasiveness of this crime to parents and tell the kids not only how to detect phony posers but urge them to never send compromising photos to anybody, even if they think they know them.

“The live stream of the girl they think they are communicating with may actually be a recording of a stranger. And if they can’t talk to the person offline, there is no way to know who it really is.

“Officers must also impress upon the kids how important it is to report any predatory internet activity to their parents.”

How to Help the Kids and Parents

“Another important thing that kids and parents need to know is that if this does happen, they must not comply with the demands of the scammer and must stop communicating with them.

“But though they need to block the predators on all of the child’s accounts, they should not delete the suspect’s profile or messages, which could be helpful in tracking them down.”

Laramie also urges parents to report the crime to local law enforcement, as well as the FBI Tipline or the CyberTipline at NCMEC. NCMEC also offers a service called Take It Down, which can be used to remove explicit photos and videos.

Added Laramie, “Parents should report these crimes to Instagram, Twitter or whoever’s social media or gaming site this occurred on as well. These services want to know if they are being used to perpetrate these crimes.

“It’s also important to tell parents that, in these cases, their children are victims and will not be in trouble, that they will be helped.

Asked how parents can prevent these crimes, Dave Frattare, Commander of the ICAC Task Force of the Cuyahoga County Ohio Prosecutor’s Office in Cleveland, said, “Kids should never go to bed or be behind closed doors with their phones. Parents should put phones away in the evening because that’s when these crimes usually happen.”

The Most Important Messages

“I also urge parents to have a conversation with their kids. Say ‘Do not ever send naked pictures to anybody. But if you do get caught up in something like this, come to me no matter what time of day or night it is, and I will help you. We will get through it together.’”

Asked how a police department should respond when they get a call from a parent, Frattare said, “You need to spend a little time trying to figure out if what’s happened is just kids being kids, or the child is talking to an offender, and it is something bigger.

“If they suspect criminal activity, their agency detective and their state’s ICAC task force can help them determine this. A lot of these cases start out small, then blossom into much bigger investigations. In our county, a 17-year-old just committed suicide because of sextortion. And we are helping the agency try to identify the offender in this case.

“If the child is at fault, there are programs and resources to help these kids. But in all cases, we need to send the message that we want to help these kids and their families.”

Added Laramie, “In my twenty years in law enforcement, I’ve never seen anything putting kids at so much risk as I am now. And as long as technology is in the hands of children, it's our duty to help youth to safely navigate the online world.”

For more information, please see the following:

• ICAC Prevention Resources
• ICAC Internet Safety Information
• ICAC State Task Force Points of Contact
• National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) Cybertipline
• FBI Sextortion Information and Resources

References

1. “Teens and Screens: Smartphones, Screen Time, and Social Media,” Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program, accessed January 23, 2023, https://icactaskforce.org/resource/RS00250778/view.

2. “FBI and Partners Issue National Public Safety Alert on Financial Sextortion Schemes,” U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Oregon, press release, December 22, 2022, https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/fbi-and-partners-issue-national-public-safety-alert-financial-sextortion-schemes.

Faye C. Elkins
Sr. Technical Writer
COPS Office

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