08/06/2026
Community Alert: BPD Issues Guide to Sextortion
What is Sextortion?
Sextortion is a form of online blackmail where criminals pretend to be someone else to build trust, convince you to send private images or videos, and then demand money or payment to prevent those images from being shared publicly.
How It Starts
Where it happens: Any site, app, messaging platform, or online game where you can chat (most commonly reported on Instagram, Snapchat, and Wizz).
The Trap: Criminals use fake social media profiles with AI-generated or stolen images to start a conversation, build a relationship, and request private photos or videos.
The Pivot: Criminals often try to move the conversation quickly to a different messaging platform.
The Blackmail: As soon as they receive private media, they immediately threaten to send it to your family, friends, or school contacts unless you pay them.
Payment & Intimidation Tactics
Criminals use intense harassment, threats, and fear tactics to force victims to pay:
Exposure Threats: Sending screenshots of draft emails containing your private images addressed to your friends, family, or school contacts.
Fake âWantedâ Posters: Creating fake flyers with your photo, name, address, and phone number.
Impersonating Law Enforcement: Threatening criminal action by posing as police officers or claiming they will report you for made-up offenses.
Institutional Threats: Claiming they will get you expelled from school, removed from sports teams or clubs, or ruined for future college and job opportunities.
Family Harassment: Threatening to contact your parentsâ employers or ruin their jobs.
Coerced Payment Plans: Demanding banking information, payment app logins, or attempting to force you into weekly/monthly payment plans.
Beware of Recovery Scams:
Be extremely cautious of any person or third-party service claiming they can âfix everythingâ or remove your photos for a fee. These are often secondary scams. They charge victims money while doing nothing that was promised.
Actions to Take If You Are Targeted
First and most importantly: Know that this is NOT your fault. You are a victim of organized criminals who spend years refining these manipulation techniques. Sextortion is the fastest-growing crime targeting young adults in North America and Australia. You are not alone, and you can get through this.
If you are being targeted:
Stop Communicating: Do not pay, negotiate, or continue talking to the extortionist.
Document Everything: Save screenshots of the account profile, user IDs, phone numbers, and all messages. These are critical for law enforcement investigations and platform takedowns.
Block the Account: Cut off their ability to message you further.
Report the Account: Use the reporting function directly within the app or platform.
Ask for Help: Talk to a parent, a trusted adult, a school counselor, or a close friend. Reaching out for help will not ruin your futureâgetting support is the best way to stop the harassment safely.
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How to Protect Yourself & Others
Keep Accounts Private: Set your social media profiles to private to prevent scammers from viewing your friends list or contact details.
Ignore Strangers: Be extremely cautious of unsolicited messages from people you do not know in real life.
Verify Profiles: Remember that photos and videos can be easily stolen or generated by AI. They are not proof that a person is real.
Watch for âCopycatâ Accounts: Scammers frequently impersonate people you know by creating duplicate accounts with few followers or new creation dates to build quick trust.
Be Skeptical of Platform Switches: Be suspicious if someone you recently met online immediately pushes you to move to a secondary messaging app.
Resources & Reporting
If explicit images or videos of you (or someone you know) have been shared or threatened online, use the following resources immediately:
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC)
NCMEC is the largest child protection organization in the U.S. and provides direct assistance to victims and survivors of online sexual exploitation.
Take It Down: A free, confidential service by NCMEC that helps remove or prevent the online publication of n**e, partially n**e, or sexually explicit images/videos taken before age 18.
CyberTipline: The official national reporting system for online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Starting the Conversation: Questions for Caregivers
The FBI recommends using these open-ended prompts to talk to kids about online risks:
âWhen youâre online, has anyone you donât know ever tried to contact or talk to you? What did you do, or what would you do if that happened?â
âWhy do you think an adult or stranger would want to reach out to a kid online?â
âYou know, itâs easy to pretend to be someone youâre not online, and not everyone is a good person. Make sure you block or ignore anything from strangers.â
âHas anyone you know ever sent a picture of themselves that got passed around school, a team, or a club? What do you think happens anytime a photo is sent to someone else?â
âWhat if that picture were embarrassing? Can you think of how someone could use that kind of picture against a person?â
âI read an article today about kids being pressured to send images or videos of their bodies to someone they met online. Have you ever heard about anything like that? It can get really scary and overwhelming.â
