Alarming Increase of “Sextortion” Cases
Since the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, the FBI in Anchorage has noticed a significant increase in cases of “sextortion” in Alaska, but with a twist. If in “traditional sextortion” the extortionist seeks sexual gratification, now he seeks financial gain, therefore it’s called “financial sextortion”. The victims are usually boys between 14 and 17 years old, “but it can be any child, and there has been an alarming number of suicides,” the FBI tells Sol de Medianoche.
“Sextortion begins when an adult contacts a minor through an online platform, game, app, or social media account and uses deceit, threats, money, or gifts to convince the minor to produce a sexually explicit video or images,” explains the FBI’s Anchorage Field Office.
If the minor resists or stops producing these intimate images, the extortionist threatens to harm them and/or their family, and to send the images to their neighbors, friends, and schoolmates. “The pressure is so great that the victim may even commit suicide.” The FBI is informing Alaskan youth and parents, so they know how to avoid becoming victims and how to get help if they are. “This month (February 2024), the FBI Anchorage Field Office has issued a new warning about this new online threat to minors and young adults, which is financial sextortion.” Cases usually begin when a teenager thinks he or she has a new online friend. The conversation begins with “Hey, I like games too. Let’s chat,” and leads to a request for sexually explicit photos. The teen does so, and the predator demands money not to publish them. Victims of “traditional sextortion” are young women and girls between the ages of ten and 17, sometimes younger, to obtain sexually explicit content. Victims of “financial sextortion” are boys between the ages of 14 and 17, but any child can be a victim.” There have been an alarming number of suicides by victims of financial sextortion,” adds the FBI’s Anchorage Field Office. Back in September 2019, the FBI launched the “Stop Sextortion” campaign in high schools across the country. Now it is doing it again in at least a dozen cities, including Miami, Washington D.C., San Diego, Sacramento, Detroit, Atlanta, Memphis, and others, such as Anchorage and Juneau. Sextortion has never stopped being there, stalking minors. In 2021, sextortion soared with the increased online activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, the FBI received 18,000 reports, although the actual number is believed to be much higher due to victims’ reluctance to report out of fear or embarrassment. “Nationally, the FBI has seen a significant increase in both types of sextortion, with an alarming number of children as young as 7 years old as victims. But financial sextortion has intensified since March 2022. Between October 2021 and March 2023, the FBI received more than 5,800 reports of financial sextortion involving more than 6,100 underage victims. Fourteen of these minors committed suicide, and there are another twenty suicides that may have been triggered by financial sextortion. These other twenty suicides of minors have been accounted for in other Homeland Security investigations, which have produced more than 13,000 reports of financial sextortion of minors by an equal number of victims.” |
