At least 46 teen boys have died by suicide after falling victim to online sextortion scams since 2021. The FBI has seen a huge increase in the number of sextortion cases—children and teens being threatened and coerced into sending explicit images online.
Sextortion is a Growing Threat to Teens
South Carolina Representative Brandon Guffy introduced a bill that criminalized sextortion after losing his teenage son, Gavin, to suicide.
The teen had been contacted by a Nigerian man masquerading as a young woman on social media who sent Gavin nude photos. He asked for similar images of himself, and once Gavin shared the photos, the suspect threatened to publicize them if he didn’t pay. The teen died by suicide as a result of the sextortion attempt.
The scammer was extradited to the US to face charges of child exploitation resulting in death, distribution of child sexual abuse material, coercion and enticement of a minor, cyberstalking, interstate threats with intent to extort, and aiding/abetting, but that doesn’t bring Gavin back to his devastated family.
The Guffy family is among an increasing number of families grieving over the loss of teen boys who have taken their own lives after becoming victims of sextortion scams.
812 reports of sextortion are received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) weekly, with more than two-thirds involving financial demands.
Sextortion scams like this one are targeting children and teens, but teen boys are disproportionately targeted.
The majority of victims are boys aged 14 to 17 who are often encouraged to share sexual images after receiving intimate imagery from the perpetrator. Data shows that younger children are also targeted; 1 out of 4 victims were 13 years old or younger at the time of the threats.
“Catfishing” is the most commonly used tactic — a perpetrator impersonates another young person and sends nude or sexual images to the victim. Then, the perpetrator asks the teen boys to send an image or video of themselves back in return. That perpetrator then threatens to share that imagery or to go public with the images unless they are paid.
This is what happened to Ryan, a 17-year-old teen from San Jose, California, who died by suicide as a result of a sextortion scam.
Perpetrators leverage tactics to intentionally fan a victim’s worry about the life-changing impacts of their nudes being shared — threatening to make the image viral, to share with the victim’s family members, friends, and contact lists, promising that it will “ruin their life.” Perpetrators will convince the teens that sending nude photos is a crime and threaten to take the images to the police, that they will go to jail for their actions.
Frequently, the progression of threats is extremely rapid. The blackmail often starts within hours of first contact. The threat is designed to pressure children to pay before they have time to process these threats or seek support.
The increased risk to teen boys is due to a combination of factors: their developmental stage, societal pressures, and the tactics used by predators. Teen boys may be more susceptible to online advances and flattery, and their still-developing decision-making skills can lead to impulsivity. They also might be more likely to trust online strangers.
A new report, “Trends in Financial Sextortion: An investigation of sextortion reports in NCMEC CyberTipline data,” conducted in collaboration with Thorn and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), found that certain platforms were more commonly used for sextortion scams than others.
Instagram and Snapchat are the most common platforms used for sextortion. Thorn found that 65% of children had experienced someone attempting to get them to “move from a public chat into a private conversation on a different platform,” most commonly Snapchat.
39% of 13- to 17-year-olds who had shared their own nudes did so via DM “in apps where content disappears, like Snapchat.”
The effects of sextortion are devastating to teens who find themselves in unimaginably difficult situations. The emotional and psychological toll on these young victims can lead to severe consequences, including withdrawal from social activities, depression, self-harm, and death by suicide.
Many young people fear reporting the incident or seeking help. Of those reports in the study which described specific impacts of the experience, more than 1 in 6 included mention of self-harm or suicide.
A Global Threat with Ties to Organized Crime
Sextortion scams are frequently carried out by organized criminal groups who operate from overseas, using sophisticated tactics to deceive and manipulate victims.
Many financial sextortion cases are emanating from what seems to be organized criminal groups in two countries, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in West Africa, and reports submitted to NCMEC are often linkable to those countries.
A recent article published by The Guardian spotlights the growth of “BM Boys” in Nigeria who use TikTok to show off the wealth they are accumulating from blackmailing and sextorting youth.
Worse, these BM Boys are using the platform to recruit and train others, providing scripts to follow, photos of young girls—often stolen from OnlyFans—to use, and tips to avoid detection. One of these blackmailers admitted that one tactic used by BM Boys is to consume US news, sports, and pop culture content obsessively to appear more convincing as Americans.
Social Media is Connecting Teens with Perpetrators
Social media apps are the most common way that sextortion perpetrators connect with and manipulate teens. While other platforms, such as gaming platforms, can also play a role, social media apps provide a way for teens to chat and exchange photos and videos.
Some of the preferred platforms for connecting with, grooming, and sextorting teens are:
- TikTok: used by BM boys to recruit and train criminals
- Instagram: the most common platform for making initial contact
- Snapchat: the most common platform for exchanging nude or sexual images/ videos
Social media apps bring predators and criminals directly to teens.
In some cases, a teen doesn’t even have to send a compromising image to become part of a sextortion scam. AI is intensifying the issue, allowing for criminals to create convincing “deepfakes” that appear to feature a teen in a naked or sexual image.
What Can You Do to Protect Teens
Awareness of this issue is one of the best ways to protect teens from the scourge of sextortion. Talk to your kids about the dangers of sextortion and other forms of online child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) so they understand the risks. Share information with other parents and child advocates in your network, so they also understand the risks.
If a child is the victim of a sextortion scam, investigators at Homeland Security have outlined the best course of action. While the first instinct of a child or their parents might be to delete any information surrounding these encounters, or to pay a blackmailer in hopes they’ll go away, both of those responses could make the situation worse for the victim or hinder an investigation.
“The images are critical evidence, IP addresses or critical usernames, phone numbers,” says Department of Homeland Security Special Agent Dennis Fetting. “Any kind of data that we can extract is really critical for us.” Fetting recommends the following steps:
- Stop contact: don’t go back and forth with the offender, don’t answer any further messages
- Block the offender
- Save the evidence: don’t try and delete messages or images
- Tell a trusted adult who can help contact law enforcement
- Report it: the HSI Tipline 1 (866) 347-2423
Training is an excellent way to learn more about the issue and to find out how, where, and when to report sextortion. The Department of Homeland Security Know2Protect campaign is an initiative to help arm parents, help kids, and trusted adults with the knowledge and the tools to prevent online exploitation before it even happens.
Know2Protect has collaborated with the Mandated Reporter Training platform to make an online CSEA training available at no cost to the public to help raise awareness and provide training for parents, teachers, coaches, volunteers, law enforcement, and other trusted adults who can help kids prevent and, if necessary, report online CSEA.
Access the Know2Protect Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse training here.
