How sextortion syndicates exploit fear, secrecy and ego
· Citizen
Despite countless public warnings from experts and thousands of preceding victims, many people, particularly men, continue to fall for, become trapped in and, ultimately, be extorted through sextortion scams.
Sextortion scams, which first made the news in 2018 with as many as 1 000 cases purportedly noted daily by private investigators and law enforcement at the time, have surfaced again in substantial volumes.
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Sextortion cases on the rise again
However, the scams have moved beyond WhatsApp solicitation and social media into real-world threats, too, said private investigator Brad Nathanson.
Victims are fleeced of anything from a few thousand rands to hundreds of thousands of rands, in some cases resulting in severe financial hardship or near financial ruin.
Nathanson said reports of sextortion have again become growing feature of his workload, with victims contacting him almost daily when at the mercy of extortionists who rely on fear, embarrassment and secrecy to extract money.
Nathanson said that there are several methods how the syndicates that run these operations can entrap victims.
He added most victims are harvested on adult websites or classified ads where victims believe they are interacting with genuine sex workers or women seeking companionship.
There are several ways how the next steps roll out, depending on whether the engagement between perpetrator and victim takes shape around chitchat online, or actual physical contact.
“It’s a sex phone call or it’s actual sex where you’ll go and have sex with this person, but afterwards, you get extorted.”
How victims are identified and targeted
Victims at brothels, he said, are typically contacted after the naughty they had with someone and informed they owe additional money.
“Either a card was mischarged, it didn’t go through, or the price suddenly doubled,” he said.
Once communication begins, the demands quickly escalate into threats involving spouses, employers and family members.
Victims are also logged once they have visited an establishment.
“Before even leaving an establishment, these guys have got your number plate. They give your number plate to a friend in law enforcement who then runs the plates and establishes who you are. From there, they find out everything about you, get your ID number, get your address and then the extortion starts.”
One businessman, Nathanson said, paid R650 000 before eventually seeking help.
“He paid in R50 000 increments because he was such a well-known businessman and his wife held all the purse strings; he could not afford for her to discover his indiscretions. He paid until he couldn’t pay any more,” he said.
Teens targeted through social media
Teenagers are also being caught, though primarily through social media entrapment.
This can occur over WhatsApp, Instagram or other instant messaging platforms. Nathanson recently dealt with a teenage boy who believed he was communicating online with a young woman.
The victim later discovered he had allegedly been speaking to a man who used intimate pictures as leverage during an extortion attempt.
Later, the intimate pictures turned to threats, even death threats, resulting in the young victim constantly living in fear, not just of being exposed, but of having his face smashed in or shot by the perpetrator as the messages warned.
Why the scams continue to work
While the mechanics of the scams vary somewhat, the escalation and intensity does not.
Nathanson said the underlying motivation drawing victims into the trap remains remarkably consistent. “One word. Ego.”
He said many victims are lured by attention rather than any intention of meeting somebody in person.
“It’s not always about sex,” he said. “In cases of digital extortion, it is about stroking a man’s sense of masculinity and needing to feel desired. This is especially true of older men.
“You get a guy who’s in his 60s or 70s suddenly getting the attention of this girl who purports herself to be 18 and voluptuous and young and interested. As soon as she starts asking for pictures that are inappropriate, you oblige because this is attention you weren’t going to get anywhere else,” he said.
The scam’s effectiveness is cemented by the fact that many victims are reluctant to involve law enforcement.
“It’s very difficult for you as a victim to go to the police and say: ‘Listen, I’ve just sent pictures of my privates to some guy, who I thought was a woman, who’s now extorting me.'”
Nathanson said victims also often fear the consequences of reporting the crime because investigators will require access to the same messages, pictures and communications that the victim is desperately trying to keep private.
This reluctance to report cases allows extortionists to continue operating with impunity. This is why Nathanson said that sextortion is a crime well positioned to exploit human behaviour.
Breaking the cycle of extortion
Although victims often fear the consequences of refusing to pay, Nathanson said continued payments rarely resolve the situation.
“The minute you start paying, it’s like blood in the water. They don’t stop. They just keep going and keep going.”
To end the cycle, Nathanson suggested victims should cut off communication immediately and refuse to engage further.
Nathanson said the simplest way to avoid becoming a victim is never to engage with unsolicited messages in the first place.
He said scammers often use vague opening lines such as claiming to know the victim from previous online conversations, relying on uncertainty rather than facts.
Once a person begins responding, particularly if they are flattered by attention from an attractive stranger, the scammer gains an opportunity to build trust, manipulate emotions and eventually demand money.
Nathanson said these criminals operate a numbers game, contacting large numbers of potential victims and needing only a handful to respond.