Reports of sextortion involving children are soaring
MORE THAN 150 CASES IN THE COUNTY IN YEAR OF BLACKMAIL – OFTEN BY OVERSEAS GANGS
It is a hideous crime. They don’t have any concern for their victim
Sean Sutton, National Crime Agency
This type of abuse is very distressing to anyone on the receiving end
Cormac Nolan, Childline
THE number of under-18s being targeted by sextortion gangs has risen sharply, new figures show.
In the year from June 2020 to May 2021, 28 cases of sextortion were reported by under-18s to Leicestershire Police, a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request shows.
The total rose to 48 in 2022 and to 152 child victims in the year up to May last year.
The crime often involves high-tech foreign gangs, who set up fake accounts to form friendships and get explicit pictures from youngsters before demanding money not to release them.
Sean Sutton, head of partnerships and education at the National Crime Agency’s Threat Leadership Command, said: “It is a hideous crime.
“They don’t have any concern for their victim.
“They are intent on destroying their lives – or saying they will. In my mind it is one of the more dangerous of these types of crimes.
“It is on the increase. It is capturing children but it is of course capturing young adults, too.” Adults are also victims of such blackmail, with fake female accounts often used to target men. Sometimes the criminals hack the account of a real woman and use that to lure in an unsuspecting male victim, using AI to chat with them and build a bond. Mr Sutton said many victims felt ashamed to have been caught out, which is why it was important for people to know the scale of the crime. He said: “A lot of them feel very culpable but we tell them that you are in an extraordinarily large company here. Lots of people are doing this.
“You don’t have to be daft to fall for this – even the smartest of people have been tricked by these awful offenders, you are not on your own.
“The perpetrators hope the embarrassment factor alone is enough to stop people reporting this.
“Our message is you have done nothing wrong.
“You thought you were sharing an image with a 17-yearold girl from country X but it turns out to have been a male who might be 40 and from the Ivory Coast or wherever this perpetrator is.
“They may feel shame but it is not their fault.
“Ideally we would like them to report it to the police and the police will be sympathetic.”
Explaining how youngsters are talked into sharing explicit images and videos, Mr Sutton said: “They entice individuals into a fake potential romantic scenario.
“They endear themselves to the individual, compliment them, turn it into a flirting scenario. “They will then ask for photos or video. It can be either. It depends on what the victim would be prepared to subject themselves to. “It’s an ‘if you share an image with me, I’ll share an image with you’ type of scenario.” Cormac Nolan, service head at Childline, said: “This most recent FOI data, while deeply concerning, is not surprising to us.
“Contacts to Childline have increased by 61 per cent in a 12-month period from children and young people who have been pressured or blackmailed into sharing sexually explicit images.
“This type of abuse is very distressing to anyone on the receiving end.”
Kate Edwards, associate head of child safety online at the NSPCC, said: “If a child or young person has been exploited to share nude images or videos of themselves online, it can have a significant emotional toll on them.
“Young people can build strong connections with those they interact with online and individuals can exploit these feelings by implying that they are owed the images or that their feelings will be hurt.
“Young people could also be duped into thinking they are sharing with another young person or being offered money or a gift ~ in exchange for these images.”
Other areas of the country have seen similar leaps to those in Leicestershire.
The biggest jump was for Greater Manchester Police who, between 2021 and 2023, saw reports from under-18s rise from 20 a year to 560.
Leicestershire’s 443 per cent jump was the ninth highest of all police forces.
While most cases involve under18s being blackmailed with actual images of themselves, some of the cases involve fake photographs being made of the victim using another child’s body.