FBI Issues ‘National Public Safety Alert’ on Widespread Child Extortion Schemes

The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington on July 21, 2022. Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times

The FBI on Monday issued a “national public safety alert” due to an increase in extortion scams aimed at thousands of children and teenagers, warning about the possibility that more Americans could be targeted over the Christmas holiday season.

In a news release, the bureau said that more than 3,000 minor victims were targeted in the past year and has received more than “7,000 reports related to the online financial sextortion of minors.” More than a dozen suicides were also associated with the trend, the FBI said.

Most of the schemes originate not in the United States, but in other countries, the FBI said. Much of the attacks, the agency added, originate from the West African nations of Ivory Coast and Nigeria, although it’s not clear if it is a coordinated effort by one group.

“As many children enter winter break this holiday season,” the release said, “the FBI and our partners implore parents and caregivers to engage with their kids about financial sextortion schemes so we can prevent them in the first place.”

Explaining the anatomy of a scam that targets minors, the FBI said that predators convince the minor to produce a compromising video or photo before they obtain the image or video and threaten to release them unless they send money or gift cards, according to the release.

“Often the predators demand payment through a variety of peer-to-peer payment applications. In many cases, however, predators release the images even if payments are made. The shame, fear, and confusion that victims feel when they are caught in this cycle often prevents them from asking for help or reporting the abuse.”

The FBI also said it saw a 10-fold increase in reports in the first six months of 2022, as compared with the same time period in 2021, according to the release.

Noting “a horrific increase in reports of financial sextortion schemes targeting minor boys,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said that “many victims who are afraid to come forward are not even included in those numbers.”

Where It Happens

Financial extortion schemes take place on websites and apps where young people feel most comfortable, such as social media sites, gaming sites, and video chat applications, according to the FBI. The predators will often use fake female accounts and go after minor males between the ages of 14 and 17, the bureau said, adding that there are younger victims.

The FBI release did not elaborate on which online platforms are commonly targeted by predators. In recent weeks, federal officials like Wray and members of Congress have increasingly sounded the alarm on TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media platform that is most frequently used by younger adults and minors, due to Beijing-based owner ByteDance’s close proximity to top Chinese Communist Party officials.

Officials with the Department of Justice (DOJ) told The Wall Street Journal that such schemes are different from other child exploitation crimes in that the predators are primarily driven by money. They’ve noted that some teenagers have been bilked out of thousands of dollars within hours of the initial outreach.

“This is a growing crisis and we’ve seen sextortion completely devastate children and families,” Michelle DeLaune, head of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said in the release. “As the leading nonprofit focused on child protection, we’ve seen first-hand the rise in these cases worldwide. The best defense against this crime is to talk to your children about what to do if they’re targeted online. We want everyone to know help is out there and they’re not alone.”

For minors who might not have an adult who can help them, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children offers support at 1-800-THE-LOST or [email protected].  If you are in an emergency in the U.S. or Canada, please call 911. You can phone the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1 800 273 8255. Youth can call the Kids Help Phone on 1800 668 6868.