POLICE are warning parents and teenagers about a “worrying” online extortion trend targeting young people.
Investigators said that overseas offenders are increasingly preying on Australian children, particularly teenage males, coercing them into producing explicit images and then extorting them for money.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) said “sextortion” was a crime that could involve child victims being manipulated by online offenders into sending sexualised images, often through the offender pretending to be another young person.
An offender will then threaten to share the content with others unless their demands are met.
Police said demands included more images, sexual favours and money.
Authorities across the world are seeing a significant increase in offshore criminal syndicates targeting teenagers.
Investigators said they hoped that by highlighting the trend, it would encourage children who have become victims to seek help.
The AFP’s top tips to keep children safe include having privacy settings of their social media accounts set to “friends only” or “private”, and turning off any location settings that could show where they go to school or where they live.
They said parents should also encourage children not to share any personal information with “friends” they meet online.
Reports of such a nature can be reported to the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation at www.accce.gov.au/report
