FBI sounds alarm on sextortion epidemic targeting teen boys—500% increase since 2019

The CBS News Justice Correspondent, Scott McFarland, reported an alarming 500% increase in sextortion cases across America since 2019, with teenage boys as the primary target of these cyber attacks.

McFarland detailed the alarming trend on “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio.

“First of all, let’s just reflect on that number,” he said. “It is hard to find a 500% increase in anything over the course of six years. This is troubling, and it’s alarming to federal law enforcement.”

FBI reports rise in sextortion cases

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Field Office in Nashville labeled sextortion as a financially motivated criminal act involving offenders threatening to release compromising material unless a payment from the victim is received.

Between October 2021 and March 2023, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) received more than 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors, according to the FBI.

“The crooks are targeting teenage boys, minors. It’s a paradigm shift in this type of crime. Traditionally, people were seeking illicit images of minors, only for the images,” McFarland said. “Now, they’re seeking the images to extort money out of the victim, and they think boys are less likely to report the crime.”

The FBI noted that victims are typically males between the ages of 14 and 17; however, any child can be a victim.

McFarland continued with the story of Cross Cole, a 21-year-old citizen of Ghana who was visiting the United States with his mother and allegedly extorted a man from Buffalo, NY, with illicit photographs.

“He tried to convince the [victim] to send money in return for not sharing illicit images the boy had posted on a social media account [Cole] had hacked,” McFarland said. “After talking to his father, the victim decided not to send the money, and it took two years to track down the person responsible.”

Nashville’s FBI Office stated that financially motivated sextortion offenders are usually located outside of the U.S., and West African countries such as Nigeria and the Ivory Coast, or Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines, are home to usual suspects.

“[Cole] is one of the fractions they’re able to catch. There are so many people who have executed this crime that they haven’t gotten their hands on yet, and part of that is the international component to this. A lot of the people doing this live and operate overseas,” McFarland said.

Listen to the full conversation below.

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