Sextortion — sexual extortion — is a crime in which someone threatens to share intimate images or videos of you unless you pay money or send more images. It can start on any site, app, messaging platform, or game where people meet and communicate, and it can target anyone. The FBI has seen a huge increase in cases, including financially motivated sextortion schemes that often unfold in a matter of minutes.
There are two main forms. In targeted sextortion, the criminal builds a real or fake relationship — often through a dating app or social media — gains the victim’s trust, obtains intimate content, and then turns threatening. In mass sextortion emails, the scammer blasts out thousands of messages claiming to have hacked the recipient’s webcam and recorded them visiting adult websites, demanding Bitcoin. The FTC’s advice on those emails is blunt: stop, do not pay anything, delete the message — it is a scam.
Whatever form it takes, sextortion runs on shame and isolation. The criminal’s power depends on you feeling too embarrassed to tell anyone. This guide explains how these schemes work, why paying never ends the threat, and the exact steps the FBI recommends if you are targeted.
How a Sextortion Scheme Works
The targeted version — dating apps and social media:
Step 1: First contact. It often starts with a flirtatious match on a dating app or a friendly message from an attractive stranger on social media. The criminal may quickly suggest moving the conversation to a different platform or messaging app, where there is less moderation.
Step 2: Building the threat. Innocent-seeming questions — “Are you on Instagram?” or “Can I follow you?” — are not always curiosity. The criminal is mapping your social connections: friends, family, followers. That list becomes the leverage.
Step 3: Obtaining content. The criminal exchanges intimate images or steers a video call toward explicit content. Sometimes the “person” on the other end is not who they claim to be at all — photos and videos are no proof of identity online.
Step 4: The turn. Within minutes or hours, the tone flips. The criminal threatens to send the images to your contacts, post them publicly, or share them with your employer or family — unless you pay, usually by wire, gift card, or cryptocurrency, or unless you send more explicit content.
Step 5: The escalation. If you pay, the demands do not stop. Paying proves the threat works: victims who pay routinely report fresh demands within hours, often larger ones. Organized sextortion operations treat payment as the start of a longer extraction, not as an agreement. If you refuse, the criminal may move on to an easier target — which is exactly why compliance is the wrong move.
The mass-email version: You receive an email claiming the sender hacked your computer, recorded you through your webcam, and will send the video to your contacts unless you pay Bitcoin within a deadline. The email may include one of your real passwords to seem credible — but that password almost certainly came from an old data breach, not from your computer. The FBI and FTC both confirm: the claims of hacking and hidden cameras are empty talk. There is no video.
Financially motivated sextortion has a particularly cruel profile: the FBI reports victims are typically males between 14 and 17, and an alarming number of suicides have been identified among young male victims. From October 2022 to March 2023, the FBI observed at least a 20% increase in reported financially motivated sextortion incidents involving minors compared with the prior year. If you are a young person reading this: you are not alone, and this is not your fault.
Red Flags: The Sextortion Checklist
- A stranger quickly moves the conversation to another app. Be wary of anyone you meet online who immediately wants to switch platforms.
- The person seems too interested, too fast. Intense flattery and rapid escalation are grooming tactics, not romance.
- They ask about your social media, friends, or family early. That is reconnaissance for the threat to come.
- An email claims your webcam recorded you and demands Bitcoin. The password in the message came from a data breach. There is no footage — delete it.
- Threats with a countdown. “Pay within 48 hours or I send this to everyone you know.” Deadlines manufacture panic.
- Demands for payment by gift card, wire, or crypto. Untraceable payment demands are the signature of extortion.
- Requests for more images after the first threat. This is the escalation cycle. Never comply — it only deepens the trap.
- “Recovery” companies demanding fees to make it stop. The FBI warns against for-profit firms charging sextortion victims for help — some have taken thousands from victims while discouraging contact with law enforcement, and investigators note some may be involved in the extortion itself.
What to Do If You’re Targeted: 8 Steps
- Do not pay. Paying does not end the threat — it marks you as someone worth pursuing. Demands almost always continue and grow.
- Stop all contact — but save the evidence first. Screenshot the conversation, the threats, the username or profile link, and any payment information they sent. Save the profile and messages; they help law enforcement identify and stop the predator. Do not delete the account or the messages.
- Block the predator on every platform. After preserving evidence, block them everywhere they can reach you.
- Tell someone you trust. A parent, a friend, a counselor. The shame spiral is designed to keep you isolated and compliant — telling someone breaks the isolation the scammer depends on.
- Report the account on the platform. Use the platform’s safety or reporting feature to report the predator’s account.
- Report to the FBI. Contact your local FBI field office, call 1-800-CALL-FBI, or report online at tips.fbi.gov. Being targeted is not something to be ashamed of — these are organized criminal operations, and reporting is how they get shut down.
- If intimate images are involved, use the free removal tools. For images taken before age 18, NCMEC’s Take It Down service creates an anonymous digital fingerprint of the image so participating platforms can detect and remove it — without the image ever leaving your device. Adults can use the similar free service StopNCII.org.
- If you feel unsafe or overwhelmed, get support now. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at any time. The FBI also has victim specialists dedicated to assisting crime victims.
What NOT to Do
- Do not negotiate or try to reason with the blackmailer. Any engagement gives them more information and more leverage.
- Do not send more images or videos under any circumstances. Additional content becomes additional ammunition.
- Do not delete the evidence in a panic. Shame creates the impulse to erase everything — resist it until you have saved what investigators need.
- Do not pay a “recovery service.” Exhaust the free routes first: in-app reporting, Take It Down, StopNCII, NCMEC’s CyberTipline, tips.fbi.gov, the IC3, and local police. No paid service substitutes for any of them, and some are scams themselves.
- Do not isolate yourself. This crime thrives on silence. You are the victim of a crime — not the one who did something wrong.
How to Report Sextortion and Blackmail
- FBI: Report at tips.fbi.gov, call 1-800-CALL-FBI, or contact your local FBI field office.
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: File at ic3.gov.
- FTC: Report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov — the FTC uses reports to track scam trends and issue alerts.
- NCMEC CyberTipline: Report suspected child sexual exploitation at report.cybertip.org.
- Local law enforcement: File a police report, especially if threats involve violence or the victim is a minor.
- The platform: Report the predator’s account through the app or site’s safety tools.
The Bottom Line on Sextortion and Blackmail Scams
Sextortion is a crime, and you are its victim — not its cause. The blackmailer’s entire strategy is to make you feel too ashamed to seek help, because help is what ends their leverage. Do not pay, do not comply with further demands, preserve the evidence, tell someone you trust, and report it to the FBI. For mass blackmail emails demanding Bitcoin: there is no video, the password came from a data breach, and the only correct response is to delete the message and change the exposed password. The threat feels personal because it is designed to — but behind it is an organized operation running the same script on thousands of people.
Sources
- Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Sextortion” — https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/common-frauds-and-scams/sextortion/sextortion
- Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Financially Motivated Sextortion” — https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/common-frauds-and-scams/sextortion/financially-motivated-sextortion
- MediaNama, “Take it Down: A new tool platforms can adopt to remove sexually explicit images of children” — https://www.medianama.com/2023/02/223-take-it-down-tool-sexually-explicit-images-children/
- Beacon Journal, “Sextortion, recovery services and what happens when you seek paid help” (March 2025) — https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/life/health-wellness/2025/03/20/sextortion-recovery-services-stolen-nude-photos/81339804007/
- Case Western Reserve University, Information Security “Phish Bowl” (references FTC alert “Scam emails demand Bitcoin, threaten blackmail”) — https://case.edu/utech/departments/information-security/phish-bowl
- ProfileFlags, “The Dating App Trap: When Flirting Turns Into Blackmail” — https://blog.profileflags.com/sextortion-dating-apps/
Last reviewed: October 2026
This article is for education only and is not financial or legal advice.