“I have your nude pictures and everything I need to destroy your life.” Cyber offenders hunt for teenagers easily manipulated
More and more sexual blackmail cases concerning teenagers are registered in the US and Europe. Minors are manipulated to send intimate images, under the threat that they will be made public.
More and more teenagers fall prey to online sex blackmail shutterstock
“I have your nude pictures and all I need to destroy your life“This creepy message was received on a social network by American teenager Evan Boettler, from a person he had previously believed to be a girl of his age – in reality, was an online scam, writes BBC.
Just 90 minutes after receiving the first message, the 16-year-old ended his life.
Sexual blackmail is one of the online crimes with the fastest growth. The victims – often teenagers in the US and Europe – are fooled to send intimate photos or videos, and the scams threaten to make them public if they do not receive money.
“When they told us that night it is no longer … it made no sense. I do not understand how this could have happened.”says Evan's mother, Kari.
She told how, in a cold afternoon of January 2024, Evan was contacted on Snapchat by someone who claimed to be a girl, under the username “Jennytee60”. But it wasn't what it seemed. In just a few minutes, “Jenny” He convinced him to send explicit images with him, and then he began to blackmail him.
The IP address came just from Nigeria
Almost two years after Evan's death, the pain of the Boettler family remains alive, and the search for answers – full of frustration. Platforms such as Meta refuse to provide information without a judicial order-which the family does not have, although she asked the FBI to intervene. During this time, the authorities seem to have made very few progress.
However, there was an essential trace – at one point, the scam asked Evan to connect to Facebook, and when they were used, an IP address remained. That digital trace led the BBC journalists in several locations in Nigeria, most often in Lagos, the most populated city of the country.
There they discovered a group of scams, known as “Yahoo Boys” -Thus named after the emails used to carry out online scams in the 2000s. These young people, often around the age of 20, live in poor areas, but dream of expensive cars and money quickly.
One of them is Ola, who explained the mechanics of sexual blackmail: “You create a girl account using false names automatically generated”he said. “It is a site where you get names of people in the country you want.”
How are teenagers hunted
Once the profile is created, the victims' targeting begins. For scams, the boys on the other side of the screen are only user -name, and they send messages to hundreds of people daily, hoping that one of them will send them money.
For Ola, it was impossible to conceive that a British or American teenager could not pay. In his mind, who is born in the West automatically has privileges.
To the question of why young people visa, his answer was as direct: “Because their sexual desire is great, and the boys are afraid that their pictures will reach colleagues, parents or friends.”
Meta's answer
In the US, the Sextor reports to the FBI have doubled in the last three years, reaching 55,000 in 2024. In the UK, the National Crime Agency receives 110 reports monthly.
Social media companies say they are acting, but critics say they could intervene more aggressively.
Brandon Guffy, a state representative in California, whose son Gavin committed suicide in 2022 after being targeted on Instagram, at the age of 17 told journalists that before the death of his son, Brandon was preparing a process against Meta, arguing that the platform did not protect the predators. Some accounts used for blackmail have been eliminated, others remained active. For Brandon, this detail was essential.
Meta said that in 2024 she eliminated 63,000 anti -regeneration accounts, including 2,500 part of a coordinated network targeting Western teenagers. Critics, however, say that these figures only illustrate the extent of the problem.
A Meta spokesman said the suggestion he could eradicate Sextortion if he wanted to be “Simply fake”. The company states that they are actively struggling against fraud networks and supports the authorities.
“We have about 40,000 global safety employees, with over $ 30 billion invested in the last decade”said the spokesman, “Including strict automatic settings for teenagers and their notification when discussing people from other countries.”
Parents' skepticism is also shared inside Meta. Arturo Bejar, former engineering director became whistlebower, said in front of the US Congress in 2023 that the company management ignored repeated warnings about children's hazards.
“Continue to show that they do not want to know when the children are in danger, they do not want to let anyone know … because they do not want to deal with it.”he said.
Support for victims
Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) offers an instrument by which minors around the world can confidentially report nude or sexual images with themselves, eliminate them from the Internet and prevent them.
If the content has not yet been published online, the organization may create a “fingerprint” To prevent the distribution, although it cannot remove the material from the encrypted networks such as WhatsApp or if it has been saved on the phone or computer.
In the UK, IWF collaborates with Childline through the service “Report Remove”also offering counseling to children reporting materials.
In the first eight months of 2025, IWF took measures in 723 cases, of which 224 involved sexual blackmail.
