British teenage boys targeted by Nigerian crime gangs in 'sextortion' plots
20 March 2025, 07:33 | Updated: 20 March 2025, 07:36
Teenage boys are being blackmailed by Nigerian crime gangs posing as young women in vile sextortion plots, the National Crime Agency has warned.
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British teens as young as 14 are being targeted over Snapchat and Instagram, as foreign crime gangs trick them into sending explicit images before demanding payment.
While most victims of child sexual exploitation are female, 90% of sextortion victims are boys aged 14 to 17.
When they send a picture, they are told it will be shared with their friends, family and classmates if cash isn’t handed over.
Sextortion gangs have been found in Nigeria as well as the Ivory Coast and the Philippines, the NCA said.
Marie Smith, a senior manager at the NCA's child exploitation and online protection command (CEOP), described the abuse as "extremely disturbing."
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"The majority of offenders we see are from West African countries," she 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."
Adults as old as 30 have fallen foul of the scheme, with some victims having taken their own lives out of fear the images will be spread online.
The NCA has launched an awareness campaign, urging victims not to panic or pay the blackmailers.
Ms Smith said: "Do not pay - stay calm. We can help. If you pay once, they will just demand more."
She added that the NCA is working with enforcement officers in Nigeria to crack down on the gangs.
She said: "We're working internationally with our Nigerian counterparts, which is where we're seeing most of this abuse happening.
"Nothing is off the cards and we hope to hold these criminals accountable."
NCA director of threat leadership Alex Murray said: "Sextortion is unimaginably cruel and can have devastating consequences for victims.
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"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.
"It supports them to understand that if it does happen, it is never their fault.
"It will also take the advantage away from the criminals responsible, whose only motivation is financial gain.
"Sadly, teenagers in the UK and around the world have taken their own lives because of 'sextortion', which has been a major factor behind launching this campaign."
The NCA's CEOP safety centre received 380 sextortion reports in 2024 alone.
Will Gardner, CEO of Childnet, a charity that works with social media companies and governments to protect kids online, told LBC: “There's a growing concern, a growing number of cases in relation to financial sextortion, which has happened over the last few years. So that's talking about slightly older children, sort of teenagers.
“A scenario may be, It's a girl, and she makes friends and starts being flirty with a boy.
“That behaviour leads to a sharing of an image and encouraging the boy to share something back.
“And the moment he does that, he’s told ‘I'm going to circulate this to your friends, family network, your social media network, unless you pay.’
“So it always starts as a scam, but it's absolutely exploitation and abuse. It's the financially motivated sexual extortion of young people organised by criminal gangs in different parts of the world.”
