The FBI warns it is getting an average of one report every day of what's known as financial "sextortion" - where criminals coax individuals into sharing explicit photos online, then threaten to disseminate the photos unless the sender pays them. 

In recent years, FBI Public Affairs Officer Shelley Lynch warns teenage boys are often the targets.

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"These scammers do this for a full-time job," she says. 

WRAL Investigates learned through police records that, in recent months, at least two UNC Chapel Hill students have been victims, including one earlier this month.

WRAL had the rare opportunity to speak with one of those victims, who asked that we not use his name to protect his privacy. He said he got Instagram messages from what appeared to be a young woman, who struck up a friendly conversation. That person then sent nude images of a woman, and asked for photos in return. 

"They got me to share pictures," he said. "Then they sent me this long message and it was like 'if you don't send me 700 dollars within 10 minutes, I will share these pictures that you sent me with everyone in your following list.'"

The student called police who advised him not to send any money. He says he followed that advice, and, to his knowledge, his private images were never published. 

He is still taken aback by how convincing the scammer was.

"The pictures they shared with me, they looked real. They matched the identity they had in the profile picture," he said. 

"This happens in seconds," Lynch with the FBI said. "These criminals don’t care about our children. They are absolutely ruthless. All they want to do is make money. We’ve seen children as young as seven become victims of this crime."

Data from the FBI shows in roughly a year-and-a-half's time, from Oct. 2021 through March 2023, there were more than 13,000 reports of financial sextortion. 

The FBI is working to educate the public about the crime, advising that parents talk to their children about the risks. Lynch warns that it's not just social media, but gaming platforms, where these criminals reside. 

"Some people choose to spot check their children’s phones," she said. "I know as a parent I did. I would go through their lists. If he didn’t know that person in real life, we deleted that contact."

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is rolling out new features in an effort to stop sextortion. That includes blocking potential scam accounts from seeing follower lists, preventing users from taking a screenshot of an image designated by the sender as "view once," and alerting users when they are conversing with someone from outside of the U.S.

"These are sophisticated criminals, so they can be very persuasive," Ravi Sinha, Meta's Head of Child Safety Policy said in an interview with WRAL. "These criminals are not at all discriminating. I can’t quite overstate how motivated and sophisticated and adversarial these criminal entities are."

Lynch says, in recent years, at least 20 victims in the U.S. were so traumatized that they were pushed to the point of suicide. 

"It’s really important that we talk to our children and have them know that they didn’t do anything wrong," she said. "That these predators are at fault. They are looking to victimize our children."

In the case of the UNC student, he says he was able to grow from the experience and gain a new perspective. 

"I’ve learned it’s valuable to not care so much what people think of you online," he said. "Because that’s how people have power over you."

If you or a loved one is a possible victim of sextortion, Lynch advises contacting law enforcement and taking the following steps:

  • Block the account that is threatening you 
    • Do not delete messages from your phone, as law enforcement may need that to identify and prosecute the criminal