Be careful of dubious acquaintances on the Internet. This is not the first time we have warned about a scam called sextortion.

The term “sextortion” refers to sexual blackmail, which is why the term “sextorsion” is made up of the English words sex and extortion – blackmail.

What starts as a harmless flirt often ends with high demands for money. The scammers make their victims undress in front of the webcam and perform sexual acts on themselves. They then blackmail their gullible chat partners.

With “sextortion”, the person affected first gets to know a stranger via a social network such as Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook or a dating platform. The affected person and the stranger communicate with each other. With the aim of convincing the potential victim to undress in front of his webcam and perform sexual acts on himself, the perpetrators quickly switch the communication to a video call. They record these sexual acts and then threaten to publish this video or picture on the Internet or send it to friends if the requested amount of money is not paid.

This is what happened to two young men from Mannheim and a community in the southern Rhine-Neckar district in the last few days. They met women online who, while skyping each other, made them take off their clothes. The women then ended the video chats. The women's demands immediately flew into the men's email inboxes, asking them to stop forwarding the videos to their friends in exchange for a payment of several thousand euros. In both cases it remained an attempt. While the man from Mannheim did not respond to the demand at all and filed a police report, the other transferred several hundred euros and then filed a report. Luckily for him, the transfer wasn't enough yet and could be stopped so that he didn't suffer any financial damage.

In another variant of “sextortion,” the perpetrators send their victims a blackmail letter by email in which they claim to have recorded compromising sex videos of their victim and then demand money so that they are not published. Such emails are often sent en masse as spam emails without a specific target.

The phenomenon of “sextortion” mostly affects men, but as experience shows, women can also be affected.

The Heidelberg Criminal Police Directorate registered 69 cases in Mannheim (20), Heidelberg (15) and the Rhein-Neckar district (34), in 2020 alone. In the previous year there were a total of 40 cases.

In the first three months of this year, a total of 12 crimes were reported in Mannheim (6), Heidelberg (2) and the Rhein-Neckar district (4).

Sextortion: detection rate extremely low.

Most of the time, the masterminds are organized into gangs, operate from abroad or use so-called bots to distribute their blackmail letters by email. According to the findings of the Heidelberg investigators so far, all traces so far lead to Africa, in particular to the Ivory Coast and to southeastern Europe, in particular to Bulgaria.

However, the reported acts are probably only the tip of the iceberg. The investigators expect an enormous number of unreported cases. The vast majority of victims simply accept the loss of money. Out of shame, the police are only contacted in the rarest of cases.

In order not to become a victim of this “Sextorsion” blackmail scam, the police make the following recommendations:

  • Never accept friend requests from strangers.
  • Check your account and
    privacy settings regularly.
  • Be cautious about publishing personal
    information such as address, date of birth or employer.
  • Don't agree to a video chat too quickly.
    If in doubt: first tape off the chat camera so that you can only
    communicate verbally and observe what is happening.
  • Do not consent to exposure or intimate acts in
    video chats if you have only known the person for a short time.
  • keep the operating and virus protection systems on your
    online devices such as smartphones, laptops, tablets or
    computers up to date to
    protect yourself from malicious software, so-called malware.
    There is malware that easily activates your webcam and
    can use it to film you at any time.

If blackmail has already occurred, the following course of action is recommended:

  • Do not transfer money.
    usually doesn't stop after the payment
  • Report it to the police.
  • Contact the site operator and request
    that the images be deleted.
    Inappropriate content can be reported to the site operator using
    buttons specially set up for this purpose.
  • Stop contact with the anonymous person immediately and
    do not respond to messages.
  • Save chat histories and messages using screenshots.

For further information, the criminal police advice centers of the Mannheim Police Headquarters are available in Mannheim, Tel.: 0621/174-1212 and in Heidelberg, Tel.: 06221/99-1234, as well as any other police station.

All information about the “sextortion” phenomenon is also available on the Internet at: www.polizei-beratung.de

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Sextortion Article image: Shutterstock / By nito


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Notes:
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