British teenage boys being targeted by Nigerian ‘sextortion’ gangs

British teenage boys are being blackmailed by Nigerian crime gangs posing as young women in a surge of online sexual extortion, the National Crime Agency has warned.

Officials warned that criminals are targeting boys as young as 14 over Snapchat and Instagram – tricking them into sending explicit images before demanding payments of around £100.

While most victims of child sexual exploitation are female, 90% of sextortion victims are boys aged 14 to 17.

If they refuse to pay, the gangs threaten to share the compromising pictures with parents, friends, and schools.

Along with Nigeria, fraudsters often come from the Ivory Coast and the Philippines, the NCA said.

Marie Smith, a senior manager at the NCA’s child exploitation and online protection command (CEOP), described the abuse as “extremely disturbing.”

“The majority of offenders we see are from West African countries,” she said.

“They use fake profiles of young women, persuading boys to send indecent images by promising explicit pictures in return.

“Once they have the images, they pressure the victim to pay quickly – sometimes giving them just minutes before threatening to expose them.”

While teenagers are the primary targets, adults as old as 30 have also fallen victim to scams, the NCA said.

In some cases, victims have taken their own lives out of fear that the images will be shared.

The NCA has launched an awareness campaign, urging victims not to panic or pay the blackmailers.

Ms Smith said: “Do not pay – stay calm. We can help. If you pay once, they will just demand more.”

She added that the NCA is working with enforcement officers in Nigeria to crack down on the gangs.

She said: “We’re working internationally with our Nigerian counterparts, which is where we’re seeing most of this abuse happening.

“Nothing is off the cards and we hope to hold these criminals accountable.”

The campaign, launching on Thursday, will reach boys aged 15 to 17 through social media platforms such as Instagram, Reddit, and Snapchat.

It will warn them about sextortion tactics and how to report incidents safely.

NCA director of threat leadership Alex Murray said: “Sextortion is unimaginably cruel and can have devastating consequences for victims.

“This campaign will help empower young boys, giving them the knowledge to spot the dangers posed by this crime type and how to report it.

“It supports them to understand that if it does happen, it is never their fault.

“It will also take the advantage away from the criminals responsible, whose only motivation is financial gain.

“Sadly, teenagers in the UK and around the world have taken their own lives because of ‘sextortion’, which has been a major factor behind launching this campaign.”

The NCA’s CEOP safety centre received 380 sextortion reports in 2024 alone.

Meanwhile, UK police recorded an average of 117 monthly reports involving under-18s in the first five months of the same year.

In the United States, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 28,000 sextortion reports globally in 2024 – up from 26,718 the previous year.

Research commissioned by the NCA ahead of the campaign found that 74% of boys surveyed did not fully understand sextortion, while a similar proportion failed to recognise requests for nude images as a warning sign.

Nearly three-quarters (73%) did not know how to report the crime, and only 12% believed they could be at risk.

The NCA has also issued guidance for parents and carers on how to recognise sextortion risks, talk to their children about the dangers, and support victims.

The campaign follows an unprecedented NCA alert to teachers last April, which reached an estimated two-thirds of UK teaching staff.

Teachers reported feeling better equipped to recognise and respond to cases of sextortion as a result.

The campaign comes amid rising concerns about child sexual abuse, with recent figures revealing that nearly 40,000 such offences were committed by children in 2023.

Analysis of data from 44 police forces in England and Wales found that more than half of the 115,489 child sexual abuse and exploitation offences recorded last year were committed by offenders aged 10 to 17.