The Hidden Threats Facing Kids Online: Understanding Sextortion

Have you heard of the show Catfish? The documentary TV series is one of MTV’s longest-running reality programs, with nine seasons and over 240 episodes. The show’s premise is to investigate the online personas of people in romantic relationships that were formed online but have never met in person. While there are a few rare instances of honesty, most of the time, the hopeful romantic has been deceived—hence the popularization of the term “catfished.”

While the tone of the show typically oscillates between complete devastation and sheer bewilderment, most of the time, once the dubious profiles are exposed, the pair simply part ways, leaving the once-hopeful partner with feelings of betrayal and embarrassment.

In recent years, however, catfishing has taken a dark turn.

Catfishing is a key tactic in the rapidly expanding cybercrime known as sextortion. Sextortion is a type of online sexual exploitation where the perpetrator threatens to share the victim’s explicit images or videos unless they provide additional sexual content, money, or both.

There are three types of sextortion: sexually-motivated, financially-motivated, and sadistic (also known as Coercive Online Violent Extremeism). In this article, I will cover all three types, but my main focus will be on financially-motivated sextortion and how minors are being victimized.

Sexually-Motivated Sextortion

This is a form of sextortion where the perpetrator meets a child online; they may or may not impersonate a different person, but they will groom the child, elicit child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and threaten to share the imagery unless the child provides more sexual content.

These situations are often fueled by pedophilia, but they can also turn into trafficking. In fact, for many of the kids we have served here at Traffick911, online communication with a predatory adult played a major part in the grooming process.

Financially-Motivated Sextortion

Also known as financial sextortion, this is a rapidly increasing form of sextortion where the perpetrator impersonates a peer-aged child, grooms them, elicits CSAM, and threatens to share the imagery unless they provide payment.

Now, it is important to note that in these cases, even though CSAM is weaponized, there is no sexual motivation. The goal is solely to get money from the victim, and to get it quickly, by any means necessary.

In an issue briefing, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) called financial sextortion the “largest blackmailing operation in human history.” Another expert we know called it an “organized catfishing scam.”

Overview

There has been an 18,000% increase in financial sextortion cases in just three years

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), reports of financial sextortion rose from 139 cases in 2021 to over 28,000 cases in 2024

90% of victims are males, ages 14-17

However, it is important to note that females are also targeted; in fact, historically, most sextortion cases have involved females. However, the financial sextortion of girls may go underreported due to the normalization of sexual harassment, which can mask the severity of coercion or delay help-seeking.

Financial sextortion has high rates of suicide, with at least 20 occurring between 2021 and 2023
Victims who lost their lives to suicide had no known history of suicidal thoughts or behaviors

Victims who lost their lives to suicide were commonly kids who had “everything to lose”—scholarships, safe families, safe homes, etc. Now, this does not indicate that scammers are targeting wealthy kids. It just means that kids who have support and opportunity feel like they’ve ruined their lives.

Teen victims often take their own lives within 48 hours of exposure

Tactics

As demonstrated by that last point, a core attribute of financial sextortion cases is their swift escalation and the aggressive tactics used by perpetrators.

Let’s take a closer look at how these perpetrators operate.

Catfishing

As discussed previously, perpetrators begin by impersonating a similarly-aged child, or in some cases, as an expert shared with me, they may impersonate an OnlyFans model or similar figure.

Exaggerated Threats

Perpetrators will use language to suggest life-altering outcomes or ruin, such as the viral spread of the child’s photos and distribution, resulting in them being kicked out of school, losing job opportunities, or facing criminal charges as sex offenders. Detailed manuals and video guides on how to conduct this scam have been found on YouTube and Telegram, and the scripts used are formulaic, designed to quickly and efficiently coerce victims to pay. Perpetrators will use similar or even identical threats against different victims.

Countdowns

Perpetrators will give victims fixed windows of time to complete payment.

Constant Contact

Perpetrators will threaten to leak CSAM if the victim disconnects from the chat or does not respond quickly enough.

The perpetrator’s overall goal is to create a sense of urgency to ensure the victim makes quick decisions, attempts to pay quickly, and does not have an opportunity to pause and seek help from their caregivers or other sources of support.

A Note About Perpetrators

In addition, unlike historical cases where roughly half of the victims knew their abuser from their offline community, the offenders behind these cases appear to be concentrated internationally, with 47% of reports showing ties to Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. Additional countries, though in lower volumes, also appear in reports, including the United States, Philippines, United Kingdom, and India.
Given the data originates from NCMEC CyberTipline data (the US hotline to report online child sexual exploitation), it can be expected that some bias exists relating to the geographic distribution of cases appearing in this study.
— Thorn, 2024 Trends in Financial Sextortion Report

Platforms Used

Now, let’s talk about the platforms perpetrators commonly use to coerce their victims—this includes social platforms, as well as payment platforms.

Thorn surveys have found that 65% of children had experienced a perpetrator attempting to get them to “move from a public chat into a private conversation on a different platform.” They noted that perpetrators may attempt to move to a secondary platform, either because those platforms may be less likely to detect the abusive behavior or because the child may be more likely to share CSAM due to the features of the platform (e.g., Snapchat’s disappearing snaps).

Here are the top social platforms employed by sextortionists:

Primary (or initial) platforms

Instagram and Snapchat, followed by Facebook Messenger, Omegle, Wizz, and Wink

Secondary platforms

Snapchat and GChat (Google), followed by WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Discord, and gaming platforms such as Minecraft and Roblox

The top payment platforms used by perpetrators include CashApp, PayPal, and Gift Cards.

*Trigger Warning

The third type of sextortion is by far the most egregious, which makes it all the more important to bring awareness to. However, the next section of this article includes the discussion of self-harm and extreme violence, which some may find distressing.

Sadistic Sextortion

Sadistic sextortion, also known as Coercive Online Violent Extremeism, is a form of sextortion where perpetrators groom victims to send CSAM of themselves and then extort the victim to do worse things on camera. Often, perpetrators will then share the sextorted content as a livestream or video to others, and they may go on to groom the victim into extremist beliefs.

As for motivation, while there may be some sexual motivation and some financial motivation behind sadistic sextortion, the primary motive is to maintain control over the victim.

Overview

It has overlaps with terrorism and satanism
It has Neo-Nazi ties

Ex: Usernames of perpetrators in chat channels or gaming platforms are often tied to prominent nazi leaders

Acts often take on a ritualistic nature, with a disturbing focus on coerced self-harm

Ex: Perpetrators coerce victims to carve their name or gamertag onto themselves, to abuse animals, or even to livestream taking their own lives, all to prove loyalty or allegiance to the group

“764” is a large group involved in this cybercrime
Most perpetrators are younger than 25 years old
The average victim age is between 8 and 17 years old
Targeted populations include LGBTQ+ youth, racial minorities, and youth with ongoing mental health challenges

For the sake of brevity, I’ll end this section here, as my primary goal is to raise awareness within the community about this form of sextortion.
If you’d like to learn more about sadistic sextortion, check out these links: FBI’s 2023 PSA, 764 Case Press Release, Wired.com’s Op Ed

How to Report Sextortion and Helpful Resources

If you’re still reading, let’s pause and take three deep breaths. Close your eyes and really focus on filling your belly with air. Inhale, hold, exhale.

Okay, if you’ve made it this far, it’s understandable that your body might have become reasonably tense, and you may be feeling a bit uncomfortable or distressed. I first want to encourage you to pay attention to those feelings and to process them with a trusted individual after this read.

Now, let’s talk about what to do with this information.

What to Do in the Case of Sextortion

Now, if you or someone you know has experienced this cybercrime, here are some important steps you can take.

Stop all payments
Report the perpetrator's account immediately
Save every piece of information, including messages and intimate images
Block all methods of communication
Contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) CyberTipline
Contact law enforcement

Resources for Taking Down CSAM or Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery (NCII)

Here are some amazing tools created to help children and adults who have been victimized regain control over their own images. Both of these services are free and anonymous and work using a “hash” system similar to a digital fingerprint. These tools also work with AI-generated imagery.

How the Tools Work

Users upload their images to the site, where the tool generates a virtual hash—a unique digital fingerprint of the image—which is stored in a secure database. The original image remains fully in the user’s control and ownership. Participating companies (like Pornhub and OnlyFans) use this database to ensure that the image cannot be uploaded to their platforms. The system is trust-based and does not require users to create an account or log in.

NCMEC’s “Take It Down” Tool

This tool can be used by minors or adults who were victimized as minors.

StopNCII.org’s Tool

This tool is for adults who have had their explicit images shared nonconsensually.

That may have felt like drinking from a firehose, but my hope is that you now feel more equipped to understand and confront this pervasive problem. While this cybercrime can feel overwhelming, especially as it evolves at the lightning-fast pace of technology, we are not powerless.

Ultimately, the most powerful tool we can employ to ensure the online safety of the kids in our lives is to have proactive conversations—to be their safe space. It is crucial that we have regular rhythms of healthy, honest conversation about what it looks like to be safe online. It is equally important that the kids in our lives know that they can come and talk to us without fear of judgment about any mistakes they have made.

We were all 15 once—we are all likely familiar with the aching pains of shame, even and perhaps especially at the thought of our parents finding out about that thing. Let’s break the cycle of shame and save lives.