FBI Philadelphia Warns Of Increase In Sextortion Incidents, More Schemes Targeting Boys

The FBI in Philadelphia released the below information:

FBI Philadelphia is warning parents and caregivers about an increase in incidents involving the sextortion of children.

Sextortion begins when an adult contacts a minor over any online platform used to meet and communicate, such as a game, app, or social media account.

In a scheme that’s recently become more prevalent, the predator (posing as a young girl) uses deception and manipulation to convince a young male, usually 14 to 17 years old, to engage in explicit activity over video, which is secretly recorded by the predator. The predator then reveals that they’ve made the recordings and attempts to extort the victim, demanding money or additional explicit images, or else they’ll post the recordings online.

The same criminal approach is used to target minor girls, as well.

In some cases, the perpetrators will use deceit in soliciting high school boys to share photos of female classmates, thus increasing the victimization of these offenses.

To be clear: sextortion is a crime. The coercion of a child by an adult to produce what is considered Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) carries heavy penalties, which can include up to a life sentence for the offender.

The embarrassment children feel from the activity they were forced to engage in is what typically prevents them from coming forward. Know that sextortion offenders may have hundreds of victims around the world, so coming forward to help law enforcement identify the offender may prevent further sexual exploitation of that victim and others.

“Using the anonymity of the Internet, these criminals are creating age-appropriate personas to lure young people in and, unfortunately, they’ve gotten very good at it,” said Jacqueline Maguire, FBI Philadelphia Special Agent in Charge. “We want to educate the community about this insidious crime, to prevent more kids from falling victim to sextortion. We ask adults to talk to the kids in your life about this — and we ask anyone who may have been victimized to let us know. The FBI and our partners are doing everything we can to bring these predators to justice.”

Some tips to stay safe:

1. Be selective about what you share online, especially your personal information and passwords. If your social media accounts are open to everyone, a predator may be able to learn a lot of useful information about you.
2. Be wary of anyone you encounter for the first time online. Block or ignore messages from strangers.
3. Remember that people can pretend to be anything or anyone online. Videos and photos are not proof that a person is who they claim to be.
4. Be suspicious if you meet someone on a game or app and they ask you to start talking to them on a different platform.
5. Report suspicious behavior to a trusted adult.

If you believe you or someone you know is the victim of sextortion:

1. Contact your local FBI field office, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov, or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (1-800-THE-LOST or CyberTipline.org).
2. Don’t delete anything before law enforcement is able to review it.
3. Tell law enforcement everything about the encounters you had online; it may be embarrassing, but the details can be a big help as we work to find the offender.

More information on sextortion and resources for parents and caregivers can be found at fbi.gov/sextortion.

FBI: Sextortion: Case Highlights Growing Online Crime With Devastating Real-Life Consequences

 The FBI released the below piece:

The doors were locked, the alarm system was on, and the 13-year-old girl never left her room. But a child predator was able to reach her simply because she was tricked into connecting with him online.

The link between Presley (her name has been changed to protect her identity) and someone she believed was another teenage girl named K.C. started out as a friendly exchange over a popular messaging app. They sent each other occasional messages and pictures of their outfits over a few weeks.

One mildly revealing photo from Presley, however, gave K.C.—who was actually a grown man in Florida named Justin Richard Testani—an opening to begin his threats. He said he would share the photo and spread rumors about her to friends and family if she didn’t do as he asked.

“She let her guard down,” her mother said. “She let her guard down because she thought it was another teenage girl.”

The demands and threats escalated quickly from there. According to FBI investigators, Testani told Presley he would rape and kill her and her loved ones if she didn’t perform the increasingly graphic and extreme acts he demanded over a video call.

Presley had become a victim of sextortion. With the internet allowing predators to hide their identities and easily reach thousands of young people over games and apps, it’s a crime the FBI is seeing in alarming and rising numbers.

To keep Presley from hanging up, the predator used details he’d gathered from their conversations and information she’d posted online to make his threats specific and terrifying. According to Presley’s mother, he told her, “I know where your mom works. If you don’t do what I’m telling you to do, I’ll go kill her.”

He told Presley he knew where she lived. He knew where she went to school. He knew how to get to her friends. “She was convinced it was someone who was standing right outside the door,” Presley’s mother said. “Someone who could get to her immediately.”

Presley was desperate and terrified when she finally reached her mom to ask for help.

Presley’s mother said her daughter called at her first opportunity to break the phone connection with the predator. Testani wanted to take over one of her social media accounts so he could use it to contact her friends, giving him the ability to deceive and exploit another group of young girls. But as he took over her existing account, he needed her to create a new one for herself so they would still be connected online.

As she was carrying out that demand, Presley had a chance to call for help. “He told her she had two minutes to get it done,” her mother said. “When they broke that connection, she felt she could call me.”

Presley’s mother and stepfather raced home. And although they were confused about what was happening, they couldn’t mistake the terror in Presley’s voice. Her stepfather reached her first and immediately called the police when he saw what was happening on her phone.

Presley’s bravery in reporting helped investigators find the man who terrorized her. Testani pleaded guilty to child sexual exploitation in February and was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison on August 6, 2020.

Special Agent Kevin Kaufman, who investigated the case for the FBI in Tampa with local law enforcement, said that they identified several other victims across the country—some as young as 10 years old.

The investigation showed that Testani obtained the login information for other victims’ social media accounts, which allowed him to message hundreds of other young people.

The length of Testani’s sentence reflects the number of children he hurt, the extreme nature of his crimes, and the devastating effects this type of sexual violence has on its victims. Presley’s mother said her daughter is still dealing with depression and anxiety, has trouble concentrating in school, and experiences panic attacks.

The fact that Presley never met Testani in person and never even saw his face only amplified her fear. This man who hurt her could be anyone, anywhere. “That’s why she went from a social butterfly to absolutely terrified to leave the house,” her mother said.

The New Stranger Danger

Kaufman stressed that this case and the many he sees like it are a reminder to children, teens, and those who love and care for them to rethink dated assumptions about where children are safe and at risk.

“Parents—and kids, too—think that if they are home, they are in their safe haven,” Kaufman said. “But these are professional online predators who have perfected their craft. You’re putting them up against 11-, 12-, 13-year-old children. I have seen victims who were straight-A students. I’ve seen victims who were adults, for that matter.”

Presley’s mother hopes that parents and caregivers shift the conversations they’re having with their children. “We teach our children from the time they are old enough to walk about stranger danger,” she said. “We teach them what to do if someone says something to you or touches you in the wrong way, but we don’t teach them about stranger danger online.”

She wants kids and parents both to understand that sextortion can happen so they can recognize it as a crime and can act. Many parents don’t know enough about the current online environment and what their children may be doing.

Kaufman agrees. “Know what these applications can do,” he said. Parents may not know that a texting app also allows their child to video chat with multiple people at once or that their children are getting friend requests from strangers and accepting them without a second thought. “People can portray themselves to be anyone online,” Presley’s mom said. “Know that you know who you’re talking to.”

Additionally, Kaufman warns that many people aren’t aware of easy-to-download applications that let someone record anything online, even without the other person knowing. Any so-called private or “disappearing” interaction can be saved and shared.

Presley’s case, with the perpetrator’s pattern of taking over his victims’ accounts, shows that even if a message is from a friend’s account, there can still be a risk. The best protection against that uncertainty is to avoid doing anything in front of a screen that you wouldn’t be comfortable doing in real life.

“I fear the belief some people—especially kids—have that if it happens behind a screen, it’s not real,” Presley’s mom said. Her family’s experience shows the risks are real, and the possibility of long-term harm is, too.

So what’s the most important thing parents and caregivers can do? Presley herself says that it’s to be available if your kids need help. If your child is afraid of getting in trouble for downloading a forbidden app or breaking another family rule, they may not ask for help if they become a victim of sextortion. This means they’ll suffer alone, and the predator will be free to target another victim.

And Presley also has a message for young people spending time online: “Everything is not always as it seems. It is easy for people to act like someone they are not on the internet. Don’t believe everything you are told. If you are put in one of these situations, one of the most important things to remember is that although they tell you they have all the power, you are the one in control. Don’t be afraid to speak up. You are not alone.”

Crime Prevention: FBI Warns That Young People Are At Risk Of Sextortion

The FBI released the below information:

One victim was a 14-year-old boy from West Virginia. Another victim from Michigan was only 12. Yet another was a 17-year-old girl from Ohio who attempted suicide in a desperate try to escape the situation.

In total, the FBI was able to identify 20 young people who were harassed, threatened, and sexually exploited online by an Indiana man who had served as a youth minister in his community.

When the FBI arrested Richard Finkbiner in April 2012, the 40-year-old had more than 22,000 videos of webcam feeds, much of it sexually explicit content that he had obtained from young people nationwide. Investigators believe he had dozens more victims that they could not identify, perhaps hundreds more.

The Finkbiner case is one in a long list of sextortion cases that have been investigated or prosecuted in the last two decades. FBI agents say more and more cases cross their desks each year involving young people who are manipulated, threatened, or coerced into creating explicit or pornographic content by an adult online.

FBI Special Agent Brian Herrick defines sextortion and talks about how young people are being manipulated and coerced into creating and sharing sexually explicit content online.

The perpetrators employ gaming platforms, social media, and dating and video chat applications to reach their young victims and use any number of ploys—from pretending to be a romantic interest, flattery and attention, offers of money or other items of value, or threats to coerce the child to produce an explicit image.

Once the perpetrator has a single image or video, they will use threats of exposure or other means of coercion to make the child produce more and more images and even more explicit material.

“The second the criminal gets a picture, that child’s life is going to be turned upside down,” said Special Agent Ryan Barrett, who worked on Finkbiner’s case from the FBI’s Indianapolis Field Office. “These people are relentless. They don’t care.”

Finkbiner sent his victims doctored but believable screenshots of their videos on pornographic websites when they refused to comply with his next demand; he also sent lists of friends and family taken from the young people’s social media accounts with threats to widely share their material. Seeing some of the messages Finkbiner sent his victims can help make clear how threatening and brutal these perpetrators can be:

“I wont get caught im a hacker i covered my tracks.”

“If u don't play i promise ill f*** your life over.”


Although in most sextortion cases there is no hands-on abuse, the offense is serious, the sentences for offenders are long (50 years in the Finkbiner case), and the impact on a child’s life severe.

Catherine Connell, a licensed social worker and child/adolescent forensic interviewer and program manager with the FBI, says she sees a number of damaging effects from the crime among the victims she works with, including depression, anxiety, hopelessness, fear, and suicidal thoughts. “The trauma level we see with these kids is significant,” said Connell.

To understand how and why young people become victims, it helps to understand the mind of a young person and the techniques used by the criminals.

First, this crime is happening where young people usually feel most comfortable—in their own homes, connected to a device or a game that feels familiar and safe. “It’s important for both parents and children to realize that their guard is typically down when they’re engaging with their device,” said Supervisory Special Agent Brian Herrick, assistant chief of the FBI’s Violent Crime Section.

Second, young people are not adults. Connell stressed that however smart or mature a teen may seem, his or her brain is not fully formed. As they ride through what she calls a perfect storm of social, emotional, sexual, and cognitive development, they are making imperfect decisions. “Your teens are facing decisions with more emotion and less cognitive thinking and judgement,” she said. “They are not thinking, ‘If I do this, this is what may happen, this could be a consequence.’ ”

Finally, young people are up against criminals who have spent a great deal of time and energy learning how to target them. In the Finkbiner case, he used a fake profile of an older teen girl to start a conversation with adolescent and teen boys. He would then stream sexual images he had captured of a female victim and encourage the boy to send pictures or go on a webcam.

In a Portland case involving a 50-year-old perpetrator named David Ernest Otto, he found girls on a photo-sharing site who were open to the flattery, interest, and attention of an older man. He then convinced them to start sending sexually explicit material. He received a 15-year sentence in April 2019 for victimizing six minors.

In another case, a California man who is still awaiting trial threatened to kill, kidnap, and injure his victims to compel them to create content. His bomb threats to a teenage girl in Plainfield, Indiana, even caused police to shut down several schools and stores in 2015.

Herrick also says the FBI is seeing an increasing number of cases start on connected gaming systems, where the competition is intense and the offer of game credits or codes is enough to convince a child to create an explicit image.

Whatever technique pushes the young person to produce the first image, fear, coercion, and manipulation keep the crime going. In addition to the threats and coercion of the criminal, young victims often feel that they have done something wrong and will be punished by parents or caregivers or prosecuted by law enforcement if their actions are discovered.

Connell also stresses that as silly as it may seem to adults, the fear of being discovered and losing access to the technology that feels like a vital part of their lives is a serious concern. “The number one thing is they feel like they’re going to tell mom and dad and their technology will be taken away and they’re going to get in trouble,” said Connell. She also stressed that when the child knows there is photo and video evidence of their abuse, it makes it even harder to talk about.

The FBI agents and forensic interviewers who deal with this crime shared that if a child admits that they are experiencing this type of coercion, parents, educators, and caregivers should move first to help the child and try hard to put aside any anger or desire to punish.

“Your child’s bravest moment may be the moment they tell,” said Special Agent Damon.

Bateson, who worked on the Otto case and is dealing with other sextortion investigations in the FBI’s Portland Field Office. “You want to be your kid’s best advocate,” Bateson stressed. “Have those conversations so that if something does happen, your child comes to you for help. The last thing you want is someone from the FBI knocking on your door because your child has been victimized in a crime.”

“It’s important from the youngest age, when your child first starts using the Internet, that you have those open dialogue conversations about what’s appropriate,” said Herrick.

Parents and caregivers should make decisions for their family about screen-time rules and limits. Connell does feel regular spot checks and conversations about who your child is conversing with and what applications they are using can be important, but the nature of these ever smaller, ever more powerful, and ever present devices mean children will have many unguarded and unsupervised moments online.

Barrett said that after dealing with many of these cases, he feels the most important messages to young people are simple ones:

Many people online are not who they say they are.

Don’t talk to people you don’t know online.

Understand that any content produced on a web-enabled device can be made public.

If you are being threatened or coerced online, tell someone. There is help and there is hope.

To report suspected sextortion, call the nearest FBI field office or 1-800-CALL-FBI (225-5324). 

To make a CyberTipline Report with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), visit report.cybertip.org.

FBI: Sextortion and Cyberstalking - How a Single Tip Uncovered an International Scheme

The FBI released the the below report:

The investigation that uncovered a far-reaching sextortion scheme by a U.S. State Department employee at the U.S. Embassy in London all started with a single complaint by a young victim in Kentucky. She went to the police.

“The victim basically was saying that she was being cyberstalked by some guy who got into her e-mail and was threatening to expose compromising photos of her to her friends and family,” said FBI Special Agent Andrew Young, who interviewed some of the hundreds of victims targeted by Michael C. Ford, a former State Department civilian employee who was sentenced last month to nearly five years in prison for hacking into the e-mail accounts of young women to extort them.

According to the facts of the case, between January 2013 and May 2015, Ford—while working in London—posed as a member of a large web company’s “account deletion team” and sent out e-mails to thousands of women warning them that their e-mail accounts would be deleted if they didn’t provide their passwords. Ford then used the passwords he received to hack into victims’ e-mail and social media accounts to search for nude and topless photos and personal information like contacts and addresses.

He hacked into at least 450 e-mail accounts and admitted e-mailing at least 75 women, threatening to circulate their compromising pictures unless they sent him more.

Following the initial complaint in Kentucky, local police reached out to the FBI in Louisville, where agents traced the source of the e-mails to a State Department server in London. The Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) began an internal probe that led to Ford and uncovered the massive hacking, cyberstalking, and sextortion scheme. Young said the investigation showed Ford spent the bulk of his time at work using a government computer to “extort women, hack into their e-mail accounts, and threaten them.”

The FBI’s primary role in the investigation was interviewing victims across the U.S. to build a case. “They were angry,” said Young, who worked the case out of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office, which had jurisdiction because Ford had Georgia residency. “Somebody steals your most private pictures out of your computer, then comes back and threatens you with it. They felt compromised.”

At Ford’s March 21 sentencing, prosecutors presented evidence of another scheme he started several years earlier, in 2009. Posing as a talent scout, Ford combed through websites where aspiring models posted their pictures and contact information. He duped young women into sending personal information, including their measurements and dates of birth. “He would send them an e-mail with a link, and when they clicked on the link he got access to their computer and e-mail accounts,” Young said.

Ford, 36, of Atlanta, was indicted August 18, 2015 following his arrest by DSS during a visit to Atlanta. He pled guilty in December.

His plea was due in large part to the voluminous evidence against him, including the statements of victims like the one who came forward in Kentucky.

“There was no getting around it,” Young said. “Witness after witness and a lot of forensic evidence—it made putting him in jail a whole lot easier.”

Sextortion: FBI Asks For Public's Help In Locating Victims Of Online Predators

The FBI website reports on the growing crime of "sextortion"and asks for the public's help.

Ashley Reynolds was a happy 14-year-old who loved sports, did well in school academically and socially, and enjoyed keeping a journal she intended her “future self” to read. But what happened in the summer of 2009 was so devastating that she couldn’t bring herself to record it in her diary—or speak about it to anyone.

She had become the victim of sextortion, a growing Internet crime in which young girls and boys are often targeted. Her life was being turned upside down by an online predator who took advantage of her youth and vulnerability to terrorize her by demanding that she send him sexually explicit images of herself.

After several months, Ashley’s parents discovered what was happening and contacted the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). Ashley and her parents later supported the FBI investigation that led to the arrest of 26-year-old Lucas Michael Chansler, who last year pled guilty to multiple counts of child pornography production and was sent to prison for 105 years—but not before he used the Internet to victimize nearly 350 teenage girls. The majority of those youngsters have not yet been identified.

That’s why the FBI is requesting the public’s help—and why Ashley has come forward to tell her story—so that Chansler’s victims can be located and will know, as Special Agent Larry Meyer said, “that this dark period of their lives is over.”

Meyer, a veteran agent in the FBI’s Jacksonville Division who investigates crimes against children, explained that 109 of Chansler’s victims have been identified and contacted so far, leaving approximately 250 teens “who have not had closure and who probably haven’t obtained counseling and other help they might need.” He noted that Ashley is a brave person with a supportive family “and has been able to use this experience to make her stronger.” Unfortunately, that has not been the case for all the girls, some of whom have dropped out of school and tried to end their lives.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015/july/sextortion/sextortion?utm_campaign=email-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=fbi-top-stories&utm_content=448606