Sextortion: A Growing Threat
- Madelyne Harris
- Jul 8, 2025
- 4 min read
What is sextortion, and who is at risk?
Sextortion is the practice of extorting money or sexual favors from someone, typically a minor, through the use of coercion, deception, manipulation, and threats to reveal evidence or expose sexual activity.
Hiding behind a pretty picture and fake profile, an offender will contact a young male, strike up a conversation, and pretend to have a romantic or sexual interest in the young man. The young man, in his desire to make a connection, will respond and engage in an online conversation that ultimately becomes quite flirtatious. Once the young man is twitterpated and fully engaged in this new and exciting 'online relationship,' the girl he thinks he's talking to, will want to exchange photos that will increasingly become more sexual in nature, which includes photos of his genitals. Once the 'girl' on the other side of the conversation has these photos, the (s)extortion begins.
The girl tells the young man that unless he sends a particular amount of money, she will start sending the pictures he's shared with her, to all his friends and family, which may or may not include uploading to social media accounts. In a humiliating panic, the young boy generally starts sending any money he has in the desperate hope that the girl will then go away and delete the embarrassing photos.
According to the FBI, sextortion victims are typically male between the ages of 14 to 17 years of age but any child, especially when they have access to the internet, can become a victim (Clement-Webb, 2024). Offenders are primarily located outside of the United States and operate from West African countries like Nigeria, and Ivory Coast, or Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines, unbeknownst to the young boy (Clement-Webb, 2024).
In many cases, these young boys have sent videos of themselves doing things they
wouldn't want their mothers to see. This terrifying, manipulative, and humiliating violation sends the young man into panic mode, embarrassed that they fell for this scam, and is now of the mindset that they will do almost anything to prevent their parents, friends, and strangers on the internet from seeing their genital selfies. They will either pay up in a desperate attempt to stop the distribution of the pics/videos, sometimes turning to self-harm, including suicide in an attempt to make the nightmare stop. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), financial extortion is on the rise and as many as 79% of predators seek money rather than sexual imagery (ICE, 2024). The imagery is a means to get to the money.
From October 2021 to March 2023, the FBI and Homeland Security received over 13,000 reports of online sextortion of minors, which led to at least 20 suicides (Clement-Webb, 2024). According to ICE, predators are using phones, social media accounts, dating apps, emails, gaming platforms, and every electronic option available to illicit nude or explicit images to blackmail males that succumb to female attention (ICE, 2024). Because the predators are out of the country, catching and prosecuting them is tricky but it has been done as in the case of Michigan 17-year-old, Jordan DeMay who suicided after he could not come up with the thousand dollars his Nigerian extorters demanded.
To better understand Jordan's story and why a handsome, athletic young man, so full of life and promise could fall for some girl's attention and go from strangers to fake affection, to dead in less than two hours, listen to the attached interview with Jordan's dad, John DeMay.
ICE has a list of red flags parents need to be aware of:
Developing a false rapport with the victim
Secretly recording explicit videos and messages during chats
Using multiple identities to contact the child
Pretending to be younger or a member of the opposite sex
Hacking accounts to steal sexual images
Threatening to attempt suicide if the victim refuses to send images
Visiting social media profiles to find out more about the victim and gain access to the victim's contact list and search for personal information (ICE, 2024)
Prevention:
It may feel embarrassing to have an open dialog with your teens regarding sexting and sextortion but in this day and age, it has to happen for their own protection.
Create a safe space to initiate the conversation before a predator targets your child. Let
your children know that if something like this happens, you have their back. Their safety
is the top priority and the online images can be handled at a later time.
Limit your child's internet access and spot-check all their online activity on all devices.
You must keep tabs on who your children are communicating with. This may feel like a
privacy violation, and to some degree it is. However, it will also ensure their safety.
Make sure your child's online presence does not include personal information and do not
share passwords, especially with strangers.
What To Do:
If you, someone you love, or your child has become a victim of sextortion, you must report it and get help to remove the explicit online images.
Go to NCMEC's tipline (CyberTipline.org). Counseling and support are also available at NCMEC's 'TeamHOPE.'
Save all conversations, chats, and messages between the individual and predator to assist in catching and prosecuting the predator(s).
Reassure your child that mistakes happen but their safety is your top priority. Do not
victim shame, be in problem-solving and supportive mode (your prefrontal cortex is
mature, theirs is not). Your child has to know you are their safety.
References
Clement-Webb, E. (January 23, 2024). Sextortion: A growing threat targeting minors. FBI
growing-threat-targeting-minors
ICE. (February 10, 2025). Sextortion, it’s more common than you think. ICE.
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