Content warning | This blog post discusses child sexual abuse and exploitation, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), violence, self-harm, psychological distress, and suicide.

Sexual extortion, sometimes known as sexual coercive extortion or sextortion, is a form of blackmail that can target people of all ages. This includes many young people and children.

Sexual extortion crimes against children are prevalent. According to the National Crime Agency (NCA), UK law enforcement agencies received 117 monthly reports of sexual extortion from under-18s, on average, in the first five months of 2024. Reports are also rising quickly, with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) identifying a 72% increase in children and young people reporting experiences of sexual extortion between the first half of 2024 and the same period in 2025.

Here, we explain what sexual extortion is and look at the tactics that perpetrators use to victimise children. We also consider how these tactics continue to evolve, such as via the adoption of AI, and the psychological harms they cause.

What is sexual extortion?

Sexual extortion is a type of blackmail whereby perpetrators threaten to share intimate or sexual images and videos of a victim unless they comply with certain demands.

In a survey of 1,200 young people aged 13-20, Thorn identified a broad scope of sexual extortion demands. According to the survey’s 285 respondents who had experienced sexual extortion, the three most common demands were:

• More sexual pictures or videos (39%)
• Meeting in person (31%)
• Staying in or returning to a relationship with the perpetrator (25%)

These statistics make it clear that sexual extortion is not a crime committed solely by anonymous perpetrators. Children and young people can also be exploited by people they know, and sexual extortion may facilitate contact abuse, making it a complex crime involving both online and offline harm. In fact, Thorn’s survey also finds that one in three victims of sexual extortion reported that they knew their perpetrator offline.

The prevalence of financially motivated sexual extortion

According to Thorn’s survey, 22% of the respondents who had experienced sexual extortion were blackmailed for money. This is a crime known as financial sextortion.

Financially motivated sexual extortion is a pervasive form of coercion whereby perpetrators obtain intimate images of a victim and threaten to release them if their financial demands are not met.

In the first half of 2024, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) recorded 13,842 reports of financial sexual extortion. In the first half of 2025, these reports had jumped to 23,593 – an increase of more than 70% within just one year.

The emergence of sadistic sexual extortion

Responses to Thorn’s survey also indicated that 9% of respondents who had experienced sexual extortion as a minor were targeted with demands to physically hurt themselves. Perpetrators engaging in this crime, known as sadistic sextortion, may also demand the victim to harm others, perform live sex acts, or inflict animal cruelty.

According to NCMEC, sadistic sexual extortion is being perpetrated by violent online groups. Members of these groups typically attempt to befriend children online using platforms such as Discord and Roblox and then force them to perform harmful acts against themselves and others. These demands can include ordering children to cut themselves, create CSAM, or sexually exploit other children.

Sadistic extortion attempts against children are rising. In the first half of 2024, NCMEC’s CyberTipline recorded 508 reports relating to sadistic online enticement. Within the same period of 2025, this figure had more than doubled to 1,093.

The role of organised crime groups in sexual extortion

The ability for organised groups to exploit children quickly and at scale is another escalating threat. Law enforcement agencies have identified many cases of this. For instance, 2025’s Project Artemis saw investigators from the US, Australia, Canada, and Nigeria working to dismantle an organised crime network thought to have targeted thousands of teenagers globally.

An investigation by the International Justice Mission (IJM) between 2022 and 2024 also found potential links between financially motivated sexual extortion crimes and forced scamming in Southeast Asia. Forced scamming is a crime in which people are trafficked and forced into engaging in fraudulent online activities. IJM’s research points to a potential scenario whereby the perpetrators exploiting children can themselves be victims of trafficking.

Sexual extortion crimes are not only committed by organised crime groups, however. Individual perpetrators can also have a devastating and very large-scale impact. In 2025, for instance, one perpetrator from the UK admitted to 83 cyber-enabled child sexual abuse and exploitation offences, including the extortion of children for sexualised imagery. Earlier this year, an 18-year-old in the US was arrested for targeting at least 21 boys aged 14-17 with catfishing and sexual extortion crimes. He is now facing over 300 felony charges. This case highlights how children and young adolescents can also be vulnerable to sexual extortion crimes committed by their peers.

Who is affected by sexual extortion crimes?

Perpetrators target both male and female victims with sexual extortion crimes. However, research suggests that there are differences in how sexual extortion is experienced between genders. For instance, a survey published by the Australian Institute of Criminology found that, of the respondents who had experienced sexual extortion:

• Males were more likely to receive financial demands from perpetrators (73.9% of male victims versus 33.6% of female victims).
• Females were more likely to receive demands for further intimate material (59.5% of female victims versus 18.3% of male victims).

The children victimised by sexual extortion crimes can also be very young; reports made to the IWF have included children as young as 11, while news outlets reported on the victimisation of an 8-year-old girl in Scotland in 2025.

It’s important to note that we may not know the full scale of sexual extortion, as investigations into tech-assisted exploitation show that crimes against children don’t always get reported. For instance, research released in 2025 by Thorn found that 16% of survey respondents who had been victimised by AI-generated intimate imagery did not disclose their experience or seek support. Although this specific statistic doesn’t pertain to sexual extortion crimes, it is a reminder that there can often be a gap between reported data and victim experience.

Perpetrators’ sexual extortion tactics

Perpetrators use many tactics to obtain the intimate material they use to blackmail their victims.

In some cases, perpetrators attempt to elicit intimate material from the victims themselves through grooming and coercion. In others, perpetrators employ tactics such as hacking online devices and screenshotting content without the victim’s consent. They may also exploit photos or videos from a past or current relationship with the victim.

The use of AI technology to generate intimate images is an increasingly common tactic. This is a trend that the UK’s National Crime Agency says has increased substantially.

The trends observed by the NCA have also been reflected in international research reports. When analysing reports of child sexual extortion made between 2020 and 2023, NCMEC and Thorn found that – where specific tactics were detected – 11% of victims were blackmailed with images that were “in some way fake or inauthentic”. This includes AI-generated and AI-manipulated material. Research published in the Australian Institute of Criminology last year found that 41% of survey respondents who had experienced sexual extortion had been threatened with digitally manipulated material.

To learn more about the use of AI in sexual extortion crimes against children, you might find our recent article interesting: How is AI changing the scale and scope of online enticement?

The psychological harms of sexual extortion

Experiencing sexual extortion can be profoundly damaging to children and young people, whatever the perpetrators’ demands or the tactics used. These associated harms include severe psychological and emotional harm and in some very tragic cases, suicide.

One 14-year-old from the United States ended his life just 35 minutes after receiving the initial threat to expose sexually intimate images of him if he didn’t comply with demands for a $50 Apple gift card. This indicates just how quickly perpetrators can target children and leave them feeling completely helpless. His mother described sexual extortion as being on the same level as “psychological warfare”.

Being targeted with AI-manipulated or generated images is also extremely damaging. In 2025, a 16-year-old boy from the United States took his life after a perpetrator threatened to share AI-generated images of him if he didn’t meet their financial demands.

As our AI Lead, Dr Shaunagh Downing, says:

“The effects of sexual extortion can be extremely psychologically damaging for victims. Importantly, the harm caused, and the fear, panic and shame children experience, occurs whether the material used for extortion is AI-generated or camera-captured.”

Watch next: The impact of AI on online child exploitation & sexual extortion (Video)

How do we combat sexual extortion?

Sexual extortion is a harrowing crime, one that affects victims and their loved ones in many ways. It also incorporates multiple forms of exploitation, ranging from coercing children to form relationships with adults, to generating intimate imagery via AI tools. This makes it a complex crime to combat, but it’s clear that intervention is needed from all angles to prevent children from experiencing the harm it causes.

Addressing the threat requires action from the online platforms that enable perpetrators to communicate with children and young people.

Investigating and addressing sexual extortion cases rapidly is crucial for preventing further harms. We discuss this further in our Q&A with Engagement Manager and former Detective Inspector Rob Chitham, which you can read here: Online extortion, evolving technology, and the need for collaboration and support.

Committed to combatting crimes against children

At CameraForensics, we know that a critical step to combatting crimes against children is to stay abreast of the tech-enabled tactics that perpetrators are using. That’s why we’ve written a free Child Safety Online report for law enforcement and investigators, covering topics such as sexual extortion, AI, social media, online gaming platforms, and the dark web. You can download your copy here.

We will also be publishing another report in the coming months. Sign up to our monthly newsletter The Source via the form below to stay in the loop.