What is ‘Sextortion’? ‘Sextortion’ is a crime that involves operating to make use of fear to blackmail a victim. The extorter threatens the victim that they possess images, videos, and other information about the victim’s online sexual habits and that they will leak the same unless the victim pays them a ransom or engages in more such acts. In most cases, the criminal will threaten to share this content on social media or with friends and acquaintances of the victim. Alternatively, they may threaten to upload the content on an online platform, pornographic. ‘Sextortioners’ generally know how to invoke fear in the victim. They might show images or a screenshot of a particular explicit conversation. They even skim the victim’s social media accounts to find information about their friends and family. They assure the victim that their reputation can be destroyed within seconds- even though this is often a hoax.

Modus Operandi

The modus operandi of such frauds has been evolving. The victims are usually befriended on social media websites and lured into conversations with nude images on messenger chats. If the victims succumb, a request for a video call is sent, and obscene videos are shown from another device while the video call is recorded for blackmail. Once the victims fall for the trap and pays the ransom, more money is extorted through other fraudulent means like impersonation. Often, the extorters are bluffing- they use fear as a motivator and do not own any explicit content of the victim. Sometimes, this may not be the case. Perpetrators obtain obscene content by three of the following common means:

1. Through sexting: The perpetrator might have sexually explicit messenger chats with the victim and gets them to send explicit content of themselves, often by blackmailing through stolen pictures and videos first.
2. Controlling the victim’s webcam: This happens without the victim’s knowledge. A fraudster might accomplish this by tricking the victim into downloading an attachment that contains malware. Then, the links might redirect or install software on the device that hacks the webcam.
3. Through threats: Fraudsters might push the victim to perform sexual acts in front of their webcam. This strategy is used to obtain more content after initially blackmailing the victim and making them fall into the trap.

Choosing Targets

In most cases, victims with lavish lifestyles are targeted, and the accused can trace their digital footprint to understand their paying capacity. This has slowly become a new concern for the police. The fraudsters keep track of the social media activities of victims. Comments, likes, and pages viewed are tracked often, and those with a stable income become the targets. Fraudsters even check the victim’s marital status and research to diagnose who they feel will be vulnerable to such acts.

Profile of the Accused

In a slew of arrests made in India in recent years, the police have come across fraudsters who are in their twenties and dropouts from schools and colleges. Such scams sustain the economy of the places they come from—the accused use Google Translator for conversations in English. There are three levels of accomplices that run such rackets. One manages the usage of an unsuspicious SIM card and a fake government ID. The second level threatens the victim by impersonating legitimate officials. The third manages bank accounts. The accused either work from their village fields or operate from different areas on a commission basis.

Types of Sextortion Scams

Fraudsters adopt different strategies to get their victims to succumb to their demands. Following are the different types of sextortion and their characteristics.

1. Catfishing: In this case, the perpetrator poses as someone else, usually someone attractive- like a good-looking young woman or a handsome and rich businessman, or someone relatable with similar interests as the victim. Proficient cat fishers operate in a very cunning way. They create fake social media profiles and approach as many users on different social media or dating platforms. They send friend requests, like the profiles of the victims, and then start chatting with them to get further information. In the next step, they gather sexually explicit content from the victim to use in the sextortion scheme.
2. Sextortion email campaigns: Fraudsters might also use emails to carry out sextortion. This method is widely used, and anyone can become a victim. Attackers draft an email to arouse fear and send it to many people. In it, the perpetrator will claim to have access to the victim’s webcam and say that they used it to film the victim while they were engaging in explicit acts. Alternatively, they may also threaten to release details of adult websites visited by the victim. The criminal will demand modes of payment in which tracing the source is almost impossible. These emails are mostly fake.
3. Sextortion by someone known: Any person, who may be in possession of explicit content featuring you, such as an ex in a romantic relationship, could also blackmail you. The best way to prevent this kind of fraud is by being careful when sharing explicit content of yourself.

Preventing Sextortion

An excess of online usage among youngsters has created an era where relationships start and go into a very intense stage through digital interaction between people. Some tips are:

1. Share as little information as possible about yourself online.
2. Strengthen social media privacy settings which limit access to personal details and knowledge about one’s family and friends.
3. Friend requests from unknown people should not be accepted.
4. Suspicious links and attachments should not be opened.
5. The webcam should be covered when not in use.
6. Good antivirus/end point software is imperative.

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