According to the FBI, it has “seen a huge increase in the number of cases involving children and teens being threatened and coerced into sending explicit images online,” also known as sextortion.

In some cases, the criminal will threaten the teen that they have a revealing picture or video and that they will share the video if the victim doesn’t share more pictures or videos. In most cases, the scheme starts when the victim believes they are communicating with a peer who is interested in a relationship. During the communication, the threat actor requests an explicit picture or video. After the victim unknowingly sends the picture or video, the communication turns, and the threat actor threatens to publish the content unless they are paid sums of money. According to the FBI, “the shame, fear, and confusion children feel when they are caught in this cycle often prevents them from asking for help or reporting the abuse. Caregivers and young people should understand how the crime occurs and openly discuss online safety.”

On September 9, 2024, the Department of Justice announced that four Delaware men have been charged with an international sextortion and money laundering scheme that “targeted thousands of victims throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.”

According to the indictment, the four men, residents of Wilmington, Delaware, were “engaged in cyberstalking, interstate threats, extortion, money laundering, and wire fraud. As part of the scheme, the conspirators, utilizing multiple payment methods, attempted to extort approximately $6.9 million from thousands of potential victims, and they successfully extorted approximately $1.9 million from these victims through CashApp and Apple Pay alone.”

The indictment outlines that the four men posed as young females online and communicated with thousands of potential victims. They offered to provide and did provide victims with “sexual photographs, video recordings, and/or ‘web cam’ or ‘live video chat’ sessions depicting what they falsely portrayed to be a young female, when in fact the conspirators were the ones operating the accounts.” They then “surreptitiously recorded the victims as they exposed their genitals and/or engaged in sexual activity.” They then sent the victims copies of the images and threatened to distribute the images to friends, family, significant others, and employers and to distribute them widely over the internet unless the victims paid them. The indictment and details of the scheme are ripe for a frank discussion with teens on safe online practices.