The FBI issued a public safety alert following an increase in "financial sextortion" schemes targeting minors.
The public safety alert was announced in an FBI news release issued Dec. 19, 2022, in partnership with Homeland Security Investigations and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
"The FBI has seen a horrific increase in reports of financial sextortion schemes targeting minor boys — and the fact is that the many victims who are afraid to come forward are not even included in those numbers," Bureau Director Christopher Wray said in the news release.
The FBI and its partners can't fight financial sextortion schemes alone, the release reported.
"The FBI is here for victims, but we also need parents and caregivers to work with us to prevent this crime before it happens and help children come forward if it does," Wray said in the release. "Victims may feel like there is no way out — it is up to all of us to reassure them that they are not in trouble, there is hope and they are not alone."
The national public safety alert followed "an explosion" of financial sextortion schemes targeting children and teens who are coerced to send explicit images online and then extorted for money, the news release said. In the previous year, more than 7,000 instances of online financial sextortion of minors were reported. Those instances victimized 3,000 victims, primarily boys, and resulted in more than a dozen suicides.
"A large percentage of these sextortion schemes originate outside of the United States and primarily in West African countries such as Nigeria and Ivory Coast," the news release said.
"The protection of children is a society’s most sacred duty," U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. said in the news release. "It calls on each of us to do everything we can to keep kids from harm, including ensuring the threats they face are brought into the light and confronted. Armed with the information in this alert message, parents, caregivers and children themselves should feel empowered to detect fake identities, take steps to reject any attempt to obtain private material, and, if targeted, have a plan to seek help from a trusted adult."
