Sextortion (a portmanteau of sex and extortion) employs non-physical forms of coercion to extort sexual favors from the victim. Sextortion refers to the broad category of sexual exploitation in which abuse of power is the means of coercion, as well as to the category of sexual exploitation in which threatened release of sexual images or information is the means of coercion.
As used to describe an abuse of power, sextortion is a form of corruption
Sextortion also refers to a form of blackmail in which sexual information or images are used to extort money or sexual favors from the victim.
A video highlighting the dangers of sextortion has been released by the National Crime Agency
Webcam blackmail
Sextortion using
webcam content often involves a
Cybercrime posing as someone else – such as an attractive person – initiating communication of a sexual nature with the victim (about 95% of victims are male).
Often, the cybercriminal simply shows the victim a pre-recorded video of a performer from a cybersex webcam site which they are sufficiently familiar with, then messages the victim at points in the video where the performer appears to be typing on the keyboard, to give the illusion that the performer in the video is messaging them.
The victim is then persuaded to undress in front of a webcam, and may also be persuaded to engage in sexual behaviour, such as
masturbation.
The video is recorded by the cybercriminal, who then reveals their true intent and demands money or other services (such as more explicit images of the victim, in cases of online predation), and threatening to publicly release the video to video services like
YouTube and send it to family members and friends of the victim if they do not comply. Sometimes threats to make false allegations of
paedophilia against the victim are made as well.
This is known as
webcam blackmail.
An increase in webcam
have been reported, and it affects both young and old, male and female alike.
History
An early use of the term appears in print in 1950 in
California.
Since early 2009, The Institute for Responsible Online and Cell-Phone Communication (iroc2.org) began warning the public about the trend of "Sextortion" via live events and websites including www.sextortion.org. This is a trend that grew based on the birth and growth of the trend known as "sexting" whereby compromising images and videos were being shared by individuals without a real understanding of the short and long term consequences of sharing "private" content on digital tools designed for sharing.
In 2009, the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ), in partnership with the Association of Women Judges in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Philippine Women Judges Association, and the Tanzania Women Judges Association, and with funding from the Government of the Netherlands, launched a three-year program on "Stopping the Abuse of Power through Sexual Exploitation: Naming, Shaming, and Ending Sextortion."
There are also scientific studies describing the prevalence of sextortion in Europe, etc. in the Czech Republic (2017).
In China, there are cases of sextortion as part of predatory lending to students.
In 2022, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection noted a tripling of cases compared to previous years and a change away from female victims being sextorted for images towards young male victims being sextorted for money.
Between 2021 and 2023, the U.S. saw a 7,200% rise in sextortion attempts according to data by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Incidents
Incidents of sextortion have been prosecuted under various criminal statutes, including as
extortion,
[ bribery,][ sexual assault,][ ()] and computer hacking and wiretapping.
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Anthony Stancl of Wisconsin, then 18, received 15 years in prison in February 2010 after he posed as a girl on Facebook to trick male high school classmates into sending him nude cell phone photos, which he then used to extort them for homosexual sex.
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Jonathan Vance of Auburn, Alabama, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in April 2010 after sending threatening e-mails on Facebook and MySpace extorting nude photos from more than 50 women in three states.
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Luis Mijangos was sentenced to six years in prison in September 2011 for hacking into dozens of computers, stealing personal information and demanding naked images from female victims in exchange for not releasing the stolen information. Forty-four of the victims were under age 18.
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Isaac Baichu, a federal immigration officer in New York, was sentenced to to years in prison in July 2010 after demanding sex from a 22-year-old Colombian woman in exchange for a green card.
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Steve Ellis, an immigration adjudicator in Toronto, was sentenced to 18 months in jail in July 2010 after telling a South Korean woman he would approve her refugee claim in exchange for sex.
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Michael Ngilangwa, a secondary school teacher in Tanzania, was sentenced to pay a fine or serve one year in prison in June 2011 after demanding sexual favors from his student in exchange for favorable exam results.
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Christopher Patrick Gunn, 31, of Montgomery, Alabama was indicted for using fake Facebook user profile to extort nude photos and videos from underage girls in numerous states.
[ He got 35 years in federal prison after being convicted.]
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In May 2010, the police of the Basque Country in Spain arrested a 24-year-old man accused of blackmailing a woman he met on an online chatroom and threatening to distribute nude photographs of her from her webcam.
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A video of the former Chinese Communist Party official Lei Zhengfu having sex with a woman was a part of a sextortion plot by a criminal gang.
[" Buzzwords Feb. 17 性敲诈 sextortion." ( Archive) Shanghai Daily. Retrieved on April 2, 2013.][" Lei Zhengfu: China sacks 'sex tape' Chongqing official." BBC. November 23, 2012. Retrieved on April 2, 2013.]He was dismissed from his position as Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Beibei, Chongqing and detained by the police a few days after. Additionally, the Party expelled him in early May. Subsequently, he was given a 13-year prison sentence for bribery.
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Aydin Coban was jailed for 6 years for the suicide of Amanda Todd.
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In 2013, Daniel Perry committed suicide hours after falling victim to webcam blackmail.
[ Teenager's death sparks cyber-blackmailing probe]
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Anton Martynenko was sentenced to 38 years in a federal prison, after victimizing over 155 teenage boys by making around 50 fake accounts on Facebook, often those of young women, to convince the victims to send him nude photos.
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Jared Abrahams was sentenced to 18 months in jail
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Samuel Ogoshi, 22, Samson Ogoshi, 20, and Ezekiel Ejehem Robert, 19, who are residents of Lagos, Nigeria reportedly targeted hundreds of teenagers and adults in the United States posing as young women whose accounts had been hacked on Instagram. The three men would reportedly ask for nude pictures and then threaten to release the photos unless the victim paid them money. One victim, Jordan DeMay, 17, of Michigan, committed suicide after they threatened to release a nude photo of him if he failed to pay them $1,000 US, prompting the United States to file the proper motions to Extradition them. Their cases are pending and they face over thirty years in prison if convicted.
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Rubén Oswaldo Yeverino Rosales was sentenced to 34 years for extorting over 100 victims.
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In 2025, police in Stony Point, New York arrested a Fieldstone Middle School student who they said had targeted at least six victims but "potentially several hundred". The male student, who was not named due to his age, had allegedly posed as a female online and obtained nude pictures of other boys, which he then used to extort them into sending him gift cards or additional pictures.
See also
External links
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Institute for Responsible Online and Cell-Phone Communication. sextortion.org
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Frederick S. Lane, Cybertraps for the Young (Chicago: NTI Upstream, 2011)
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Gross, Doug. " Police: Naked scammers seduce, blackmail men on Web." CNN. February 18, 2013.
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" Cyber Alerts for Parents & Kids Tip #2: Beware of 'Sextortion'." ( Archive) Federal Bureau of Investigation. February 10, 2012.
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" A Case of 'Sextortion' Cons Like 'Bieber Ruse' Targeted Minor Girls." ( Archive) Federal Bureau of Investigation. February 5, 2013.
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Morris, Kevin. " Man strips on camera for "girlfriend", gets blackmailed." The Daily Dot. May 6, 2013.
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" Kids blackmailed into online Sex." CNN. September 20, 2013.
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Vives, Ruben. " Glendale man sentenced to 5 years in 'sextortion' case." Los Angeles Times. December 9, 2013.
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" Sextortion scam email campaign has netted $143k in Bitcoin." Thexyz. November 13, 2018.
