Sharp rise in sextortion crime reports

Between January and August 2020, 283 crimes were recorded across Scotland, an increase of 44 per cent on the same period in 2019, when 196 offences were reported.

Assistant Chief Constable Pat Campbell said it was a “particularly worrying trend” with increasing numbers of children being targeted.

Among children aged ten to 15, most extortion demands were for further images or videos. However, a number included webcam extortions for money or threats of violence.

Girls and young women aged under 18 were most vulnerable to being targeted for images, and around half of female victims were aged ten to 17.

Sextortion is cyber-enabled extortion which involves the threat of sharing sexual information, images or clips to extort money from people, whether images actually exist or not. Footage or images obtained through webcam recording or from footage or images provided by the victim were used as leverage in 236 (83 per cent) of reported incidents.

Two thirds of the extortions (189 incidents ) demanded money from the victim to avoid disclosure of sexual images or footage they had unwittingly provided to criminals.

Police Scotland said sextortion victims ranged in age from ten to 85 years, with the majority (64 per cent or 182) aged 25 and under.

Money was the main reason for targeting older victims.

Mr Campbell said: “Becoming a victim of extortion is devastating particularly if the extortion involves the threat of sexual exposure.

“Social media has become the default for communicating and meeting people during lockdown, for both adults and children. Criminals are targeting people online and tapping into vulnerabilities.

“It is distressing to realise that actions you thought were private are now a source of threat. It is a particularly worrying trend that we are now seeing increasing numbers of children being targeted and threatened in this way.

“Criminals don’t care about the hurt or damage they cause, they only care about money. And once they identify a victim it is likely their demands will continue.

“We can’t underestimate how important online apps and platforms have been for people during lockdown but sometimes the people you meet online are not who they say they are. We want people to be aware of the risks and stay safe online.”

Figures show most victims were male (60 per cent), with just over half aged between 13 and 23 years.

Young men in their late teens/early twenties were the most vulnerable to being targeted for money. Over all age groups:

• 85 per cent (158) of the complainers targeted to obtain money were male; and
• 94 per cent (76) of the complainers targeted to obtain images/video were female.