Holding your whole life to ransom: the rise of sextortion

A reputation management lawyer’s phone can ring for a multitude of reasons – but if recent client experiences, legislative changes and statistics are anything to go by, we are seeing an explosion in a particularly cruel and traumatic type of threat to a client’s image, mental health, relationships and career.

It is known as ‘sextortion’, an umbrella term coined to describe a range of situations where an individual is blackmailed online after sharing – or being tricked into sharing – naked photos or other intimate material, whilst using social media, dating sites or messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.

Another scenario is where the perpetrator and the victim are known to each other: for example, they may have been in a relationship or had an affair. Here, the victim is often female and may either have shared photos consensually or they may have been hacked. This has been dubbed ‘revenge porn’ and there have been a number of high-profile prosecutions. In other scenarios, criminals send mass phishing emails pretending to have compromising material which they don’t have at all.

Whatever the particular scenario, there is no doubt that this form of blackmail places immense psychological pressure on victims. As observed by Toby Middleton in his thesis on the subject: ‘The basis of a blackmail offence relies on victim vulnerability. The fear of damage to one’s self respect, self-worth and reputation creates a power imbalance between the offender and victim.’

Where money is demanded, sextortion can be prosecuted as blackmail because threatening to disclose naked images or intimate information would constitute an unwarranted demand with menaces ‘with a view to gain’ under Section 21 (1) of the Theft Act 1968. It could also be prosecuted under the new Section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, ‘Sharing or threatening to share intimate photographs or film’, introduced by Part 10 of the Online Safety Act 2023. If the police take action, for example by carrying out a raid and confiscating devices, that might put a stop to the threat. If not, claimants can turn to civil law and seek an interim injunction to restrain publication in misuse of private information and harassment.

The challenges to prosecution

However, for a number of reasons, despite the large amount of money that appears to be regularly changing hands, and the wide range of people being targeted, the vast majority of sextortion cases never even show up on the legal radar.

Bars to tracing, reporting and prosecution range from the use of anonymous social media accounts which disappear once the money is sent, to the fact that perpetrators are often located abroad, to the shame of reporting and the fear of enraging the blackmailer.

Orla Daly, a criminal barrister at QEB Hollis Whiteman Chambers estimates that about 80% of sextortion cases are perpetrated by criminal gangs who are located abroad, often in Africa or Asia, often against male victims, making them a nightmare to prosecute.

The victim in the gang scenario is typically male and tricked into believing that a real woman is interested in him online by means of a fake profile. He will usually be oblivious to what is going on until he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a live blackmail scenario from his phone or laptop.

It is only after he has been deceived into sending naked photos or showing body parts on a web cam that the mask falls away and the blackmailer steps forth demanding payment. Tragically, teenage boys, who are more vulnerable and prone to panic, are increasingly being targeted and there have been a number of suicides.

Demands can range from anything from a small payment from a gift card to hundreds of thousands of pounds when the victim is wealthy.

The target then faces the agony of choice: try to ignore the threats and not respond in the belief they will go away, pay up in the hope this will pacify the perpetrator, reach out for help from a lawyer or crisis expert, or contact the police.

With the sword of Damocles hovering, now may be the time for the victim to engage in pre-emptive damage limitation, whether by having a difficult conversation with a spouse, or even in some cases, deciding to resign from a high-profile job in case the material does get released. One expert explains: ‘If you are high profile because of your job, pre-emptively stepping down could protect both you and the company in case the material is released. You will immediately become less newsworthy as the ‘former’ senior officer holder at the company and, if you have left by the time the material is released, the company is no longer relevant to the story.’

To pay or not to pay

Whilst these incidents can have ruinous consequences and there is no magic fix, involving a third party such as a lawyer or risk management expert can help to slow the situation down and support the victim to resist the immense pressure to take action, either by responding to a message or sending a payment. They can also provide a reality check in the face of unrealistic threats, such as ‘going to the press’ when privacy laws mean that no mainstream media outlet is going to publish naked photographs being used to blackmail somebody.

Andrew Wolfe Murray of Theseus Fixated Risk Management advises: ‘It is generally best to take a step back as it’s very unlikely to change the level of risk that the person is going to carry out the threat. There are lots of options but paying straight away is unlikely to be the right one.’

It is not hard to see why some feel that paying the money feels like a good deal when faced with the alternative, as it did for one client, a young professional based in London, who recently found himself being blackmailed by criminals abroad via the messaging app Telegram, after using a popular dating app.

He explains that he thought he had matched with a very attractive woman outside his geographical range: ‘We started chatting and it seemed fine. They asked me to move to Telegram which I had used before with no issues. Once we were on Telegram the chat became more sexual and moved to video chats. I thought I was looking at a naked woman on video who was asking me to mirror what she was doing, which I did. The call then suddenly ended, which I thought nothing of at the time. With hindsight I realise this was just a video used to entrap me. What I would say is: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.’

Shortly after the video call he started to receive harassing messages in which the blackmailer said they had looked him up online using his mobile number: ‘I did not know that your phone number is visible on Telegram unless you mask it, which I had not done. They found my name, the name of the company where I work and the names of my friends, which they had found by going into my social media accounts.’

After he had blocked them on Telegram, the criminals then harassed him via WhatsApp: ‘They WhatsApped me a screenshot of the naked video footage of myself being uploaded to a friend’s social media account, and threatened to hit ‘upload’ if I didn’t unblock them on Telegram, which I did. ‘I then found myself speaking to a man in the Philippines who sounded as if he was in a call centre as he was whispering with other people about what to do.’

The criminals initially asked for a three-figure sum not to release the video. ‘As I am fortunate enough to be able to pay it, I decided to do so in the hope this would stop them from releasing the video.’

However, as often happens when any payment is made, this led to further demands: ‘After two hours on the phone with them I had made several payments totalling more than £3,000 to a number of different digital payment wallets.’ Even this did not bring an end to the nightmare and he received a further demand for a similar sum by a certain date. Having now sought external guidance he has not responded and is now playing a waiting game until the payment deadline set by the criminals to see if they get back in touch.

Meanwhile he says that his abuse reports to WhatsApp and Telegram and an online police report have received no response. He observes: ‘Thankfully I am quite robust but if you were not this would be an unbearable situation.’

But for some, making a payment can end the nightmare, as it did for another client, a married senior executive, who found himself readily parting with a five-figure sum within hours of logging into an American dating website.

After being targeted by a fake profile and tricked into moving to WhatsApp and sharing a photo, within seconds the criminals had established his real identity, the company where he worked and his wife’s name, all of which was sent to him in a dossier of screen grabs, including a photo of him with his children taken from social media. Next came a demand for £50,000 in return for not posting all of this – together with the explicit messages he had sent – onto Twitter.

‘My first thought was that within reason I will do anything to make it go away. It was undoubtedly the worst experience of my life. You are in a mixture of denial but you can’t deny it is happening so there is panic. Someone has huge power over your whole future as if the material gets into the public domain it could be a problem for the rest of your life. It is much more than financial extortion, it is holding your whole life to ransom.’

There then ensued a bizarre negotiation, in which the criminals – still pretending to be a real woman – came up with every trick in the book to pressure him into sending the money, including with the claim it was needed for children’s school fees. After negotiating the amount down, he actioned a bank transfer for a five-figure sum.

When the bank stopped the unusual payment, he was so terrified of enraging the blackmailer into releasing the material that he called the bank and made up a reason for the transfer which sounded legitimate. He explains: ‘Then you have lied to your bank, you find yourself getting in deeper and deeper, one false move and your life could be ruined.’

The complexity of pursuing justice

The potential consequences of anyone finding out what has happened, and triggering onward problems which are beyond the victim’s control, make reporting such incidents highly unattractive.

Raymond Shaw, Senior Partner at criminal firm Shaw Graham Kersh, explains: ‘My guess is that the proportion of these incidents that make it to the police is minimal. There are people who have got the nous and the money to get lawyered up and take it to the police but they will not want to do so because victim anonymity would not be a certainty in a blackmail case. The prosecution would need to make an application, the decision is for the judge and the defence would likely oppose it. Most people will probably conclude that the risk of being identified as the victim of this kind of offence would be an entirely self-defeating exercise.’

On top of that, victims know that the prospect of bringing the culprits to justice seems vanishingly small. Orla Daly observes: ‘Whilst the NCA has said it is cracking down on this kind of crime, in reality it’s a nightmare to prosecute. The first issue is identifying a suspect who will only ever use an anonymous profile online and is good at covering their tracks, meaning you will never get a name or identifying information. Then, even if you could track the individual to a particular country, there are real issues with how to then prosecute them in the UK. In practice I have never seen it. Hence, prevention is very much the way forward.’

The best form of prevention, Andrew Wolfe Murray counsels, is to: ‘Treat private images of yourself or other intimate information just like you would your bank details – guard it closely and avoid sharing it in a way that could make you vulnerable’’.

However, there is hope in that recent legislative changes could improve the likelihood of victims choosing to make a police report. Experts believe that, where the perpetrator has shared or is threatening to share intimate photographs or film, a new offence introduced by the Online Safety Act 2003 into sexual offences legislation should enable the person targeted to benefit from the automatic right to anonymity to which victims of sexual offences are entitled.

The new Section 66B in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 criminalises ‘sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film’ where B does not consent to the sharing and carries a maximum sentence of two years. Significantly therefore, the material does not actually have to be shared for the offence to apply.

Sections (1) to (3) create criminal offences where ‘A intentionally shares a photograph or film which shows or appears to show, another person (B) in an intimate state’ where B does not consent and one of three circumstances applies: either ‘A does not reasonably believe that B consents’, or the intention is to cause alarm, distress or humiliation, or the purpose is sexual gratification, the latter requiring reporting to the Sex Offenders’ Register.

‘In an intimate state’ is defined in 66D (5) to include (among other definitions) where the photo or film shows or appears to show: ‘all or part of the person’s exposed genitals, buttocks or breasts’, ‘the person participating or engaging in an act which a reasonable person would consider to be a sexual act’ or ‘the person doing a thing which a reasonable person would consider to be sexual’.

Under Section 66B (4), the offence of ‘threatening to share’ is committed where ‘(a) A threatens to share a photograph or film which shows, or appears to show, another person (B) in an intimate state’, and ‘(b) A does so – (i) with the intention that B or another person who knows B will fear that the threat will be carried out’, or ‘(ii) being reckless as to whether B or another person who knows B will fear that the threat will be carried out.’

Importantly, for either the threatening or sharing offence, under Section 66B (7) it is not necessary for the image to exist, i.e. a perpetrator pretending to have such an image would also be caught. Furthermore, new CPS guidance issued in January this year requires prosecutors to consider whether they need the victim to make a statement or give evidence, given that the messages themselves could stand in evidence.

Danielle Reece-Greenhalgh, a partner at Corker Binning says: ‘From the prosecutor’s perspective, the new offences are an improvement on what there was before in terms of covering this very specific behaviour. Previous to this new legislation, the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 required the perpetrator to intend to cause distress to the victim by their threat, and the image must have been of a “private sexual” nature. With the new offence, the offender’s intention must simply be that their victim will fear the threat will be carried out (or recklessness as to that same fear). The image (or purported image) must be intimate, rather than sexual, and so a wider scope of material is included. This makes the offence easier to prosecute. Time will tell as to whether they have succeeded in terms of successful prosecutions.’

Civil remedies

Where threats to release private photos or information are credible and escalating, a claimant could apply to the civil courts for an urgent interim injunction in misuse of private information and harassment to restrain publication.

Adam Speker KC of 5RB who specialises in media and communications law says: ‘There is no doubt that private photos would constitute information in respect of which you have a reasonable expectation that they will remain private. That is particularly so if they were taken during the course of a relationship. The process is fairly straightforward these days and if there is blackmail involved the merits would usually be strong. That said, it does depend on the way the defendant behaves. If they do not comply with a court order for example it can be difficult and expensive to police.’

But what if you have no idea who is blackmailing you?

He explains: ‘In situations where you don’t know who the person making the threats is, you could either get an injunction against ‘Persons Unknown’ provided you have an address for service or a means by which it would be brought to the attention of the person making the threats, such as a mobile phone number or social media account. Or you could consider getting an injunction against the platform hosting the photos or you could get a Norwich Pharmacal Order or identity disclosure order against a third party who would know the identity of the perpetrator.’

The case law also shows that where intimate images have already been posted online in a blackmail or revenge scenario, the civil courts will order their removal.

The Revenge Porn Helpline can also help get content removed.

Additional research by Molly-May Keston.