Sextortion
What is sextortion?
In short, it’s a type of online blackmail, where criminals, including organised crime gangs often overseas, threaten to share your sexual photos, videos, or information. It is a financially motivated sexual extortion, and they often try to take money from you, or force you to do something else you don’t want to do.
Did you know?
- We have shocking figures on the number of sextortion reports across our city and county, which have increased more than six-fold over the last few years – from 80 reports in 2019, to a staggering 547 in 2023
- More than 100 reports have been made this year (2024) already
- Due to the nature of the crime, the victims will remain anonymous
- Anyone can be a victim of sextortion. However, young people aged between 15 to 17, and adults aged under 30 are often most at risk
Most victims are male, predominately between the ages of 14 to early 20s.
Nottinghamshire Police’s involvement
Nottinghamshire Police has launched a new hard-hitting campaign to raise awareness of sextortion, an awful crime on the rise in our county.
The aim is to educate and prevent children and young people from becoming victims.
How to recognise sextortion
Criminals often contact victims via social media messaging, such as Snapchat and Instagram and pretend to be someone they’re not, i.e a ‘young and attractive woman’.
Conversations can sometimes go on for days, and criminals try to gain their victims’ trust, and then progress things to the next level. This is often by way of sending intimate photos of themselves – which is not them, it’s who they are pretending to be, then encourage the victim to do the same.
Once an intimate photo has been shared with the criminal, that’s when the material is used against them, and things take a dark turn. The conversation will become threatening and persistent requests for money follow. If the victim doesn’t send money, the criminal will threaten to share the intimate imagery or video content with family and friends.
Tips and advice to keep you safe from sextortion:
If you are chatting to new people online:
- Review your privacy settings. Criminals are less likely to target you if they can’t see who your friends and family are
- If you’re not comfortable speaking to the person or being contacted by someone you don’t know, end the chat quickly and remove them from your channels
- Be careful of those trying to start a conversation / relationship with you very quickly online – they may even send you a sexual image first
- Be cautious about new people you are speaking to online – can you validate they are who they say they are. If you can’t, remove them from your channels
- Never share sexual images or information about yourself if you are not comfortable or feel under pressure to do. Criminals involved in sextortion will consistently ask for that naked picture or video of you and are less interested in other conversation
If you are a victim of sextortion, it’s not your fault.
- Don’t panic, help and support is available
- Stop all communication with the offender immediately
- Don’t pay, even if you are tempted, as there is no guarantee that this will stop the threats
- Save the evidence: take screenshots, save messages and images, make a note of usernames, email addresses, phone numbers and bank account numbers
- Collect url links to where your images or information is being shared online
Report it
We understand that it might be difficult to report this type of crime to us. But we're here to listen and support you in any way we can.
You can report intimate image abuse to us:
- Online
- By calling 101
- British Sign Language (BSL) users please use our video relay service where an interpreter will help you report the crime to us
If you are under 18
- We recommend you tell a trusted adult
- You can report sextortion, or any other form of online child sexual abuse, to https://www.ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre
- You can call Childline on: 0800 1111, or visit their website for further information and advice https://www.childline.org.uk/
- You can contact the NSPCC helpline by calling 0808 800 5000, emailing [email protected] or completing their online form
- You can also contact Fearless by calling 0800 555 111, or visiting their website https://crimestoppers-uk.org/fearless