The National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned that British teenage boys are being targeted in a surge of online sexual extortion, known as “sextortion,” by criminal gangs operating from Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, and the Philippines.
According to officials, the gangs pose as young women on social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, luring boys—some as young as 14—into sending explicit images. The criminals then demand payments of around £100, threatening to share the compromising pictures with parents, friends, and schools if their demands are not met.
Marie Smith, a senior manager at the NCA’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command (CEOP), described the trend as “extremely disturbing.”
“The majority of offenders we see are from West African countries,” Smith said. “They use fake profiles of young women, persuading boys to send indecent images by promising explicit pictures in return. Once they have the images, they pressure the victim to pay quickly—sometimes giving them just minutes before threatening to expose them.”
While most victims of child sexual exploitation are female, the NCA reports that 90% of sextortion victims are boys aged 14 to 17. However, adults as old as 30 have also been targeted.
Tragically, some victims have taken their own lives out of fear that their images would be shared.
In response to the growing threat, the NCA has launched a nationwide awareness campaign aimed at boys aged 15 to 17. The campaign, which will be promoted on Instagram, Reddit, and Snapchat, aims to educate young people about sextortion tactics and how to report incidents safely.
“Sextortion is unimaginably cruel and can have devastating consequences for victims,” said NCA Director of Threat Leadership, Alex Murray. “This campaign will help empower young boys, giving them the knowledge to spot the dangers posed by this crime type and how to report it.”
Murray emphasized that victims should not feel ashamed and urged them not to pay the blackmailers.
“Do not pay—stay calm. We can help. If you pay once, they will just demand more,” Smith advised.
The NCA is working with Nigerian law enforcement agencies to track down and prosecute those responsible.
“We’re working internationally with our Nigerian counterparts, which is where we’re seeing most of this abuse happening,” Smith said. “Nothing is off the cards, and we hope to hold these criminals accountable.”
The campaign follows a surge in sextortion reports. The NCA’s CEOP safety centre recorded 380 cases in 2024, while UK police logged an average of 117 monthly reports involving under-18s in the first five months of the year.
In the United States, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received over 28,000 sextortion reports globally in 2024, up from 26,718 the previous year.
