He thought he could trust the person and accepted a video call request, but then a compromising video was recorded without his knowledge. I think the scammers look for somebody’s weak spot, and they dig into it.” One victim, who called the helpline his “saviour”, started chatting with a Facebook account that appeared to belong to a woman with whom he shared several mutual friends. “We see everybody from every walk of life, through every experience, be affected by this, and it doesn’t discriminate. Ms Roddis told PA: “We see… people who are in happy, committed relationships, people who are going through break-ups, people who are single, people who are exploring their sexuality, people who are gay and haven’t come out yet. Scammers will use any tactic they can to extort money, she said, such as calling victims paedophiles, which is “incredibly terrifying”.Ĭallers are advised not to engage with, or pay, the person sextorting them, but to block them. Helpline practitioner Zara Roddis said numbers have “exploded” in recent years, with scammers becoming more aggressive during the pandemic and greater awareness leading to more people coming forward to report the crime. The helpline said the threats “are very real, but the content is rarely released”. In 80% of the cases the perpetrator was a criminal gang, while 11% involved a current or former partner.
Sextortion made up a quarter of the overall cases reported to the helpline last year, and 88% of sextortion cases involved male victims. Scammers – usually overseas organised crime groups – take details of the victim’s followers, friends, and family contacts and attempt to make some quick cash by threatening to share the images or videos. Sextortion occurs when images or videos are captured or sent during an online sexual exchange, and the victim is extorted and blackmailed for their intimate content. The Revenge Porn Helpline charity said it believes the reports are a fraction of the true number of sextortion cases, as there is a “huge amount of shame” around falling prey to scammers. They now stand at more than six times the number reported in 2016. The total number of reports from victims of intimate image abuse to the helpline increased by 40% from 3,146 to 4,406 last year, according to figures shared with the PA news agency. Sextortion was the helpline’s most reported issue in 2021, with 1,124 cases reported – up from 593 in 2020. Cases of sextortion reported to the UK’s revenge porn helpline have almost doubled within a year, becoming its main issue for the first time, figures show.