British teenage boys being targeted by Nigerian ‘sextortion’ gangs
British teenage boys are being blackmailed by Nigerian crime gangs posing as young women in a surge of online sexual extortion, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned.
Officials warned that criminals are targeting boys as young as 14 over Snapchat and Instagram – tricking them into sending explicit images before demanding payments of around £100.
While most victims of child sexual exploitation are female, 90% of sextortion victims are boys aged 14 to 17.
If they refuse to pay, the gangs threaten to share the compromising pictures with parents, friends, and schools.
Along with Nigeria, fraudsters often come from the Ivory Coast and the Philippines, the NCA said.
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Marie Smith, a senior manager at the NCA’s child exploitation and online protection command (CEOP), described the abuse as “extremely disturbing.”
“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.”
While teenagers are the primary targets, adults as old as 30 have also fallen victim to scams, the NCA said.
In some cases, victims have taken their own lives out of fear that the images will be shared.
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