JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Research shows financial sextortion cases are skyrocketing in recent years. State Attorney Melissa Nelson tells Action News Jax she’s seen an increase in local cases. Now, her office plans to work with local law enforcement to create a sextortion task force.
A nationally recognized cybercrime and financial sextortion expert was invited to Jacksonville Thursday by State Attorney Melissa Nelson to give advice to parents and children on how to protect themselves.
“I’m reading about teens, taking their own lives across our nation,” said Nelson. “I’m the mother of both three teenagers and both as a prosecutor, a public servant, and a mother, I feel like our community needs to know about this.”
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
Financial Sextortion is a crime that involves blackmailing children using their intimate images or intimate videos to demand money.
According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, there were 139 cases of sextortion in 2021. By 2023, there were over 26,000 cases reported. That is an 18,000% increase in the span of 2 years.
“If you’re on social media and you get a friend request from somebody you don’t know and immediately, they start messaging you, they start to compliment you, they ask you for pictures, that’s a red flag right away,” said Paul Raffile, Cybercrime expert and researcher.
Raffile said during his research, he noticed a correlation between the spike in financial sextortion cases and the increased use of financial payment platforms.
“What we actually saw is this crime started spiking about a year or a year and a half after COVID started. In fact, there’s more of a correlation to a lot of the financial payment platforms that allowed teens on their platforms post-2021. And at the same time that teens have been able to send money back and forth to their friends, now they’re also exposed to international criminals who exploit those apps to get them to send them money their way instead,” said Raffile.
Raffile noted that a lot of the time, sextortion criminals are targeting young men on sports teams. He suggested some active approaches parents and coaches should be taking to get ahead of this.
“Just having that conversation, if this does happen to you, you can come to us. You can reach out to a parent, reach out to a coach or a teacher and they will find some way to help,” said Raffile.
If you think you are falling victim to sextortion, be sure to report it to the authorities immediately.
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Sign Up
