FinCEN Issues Notice on Financially Motivated Sextortion

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Notice to help financial institutions detect and disrupt financially motivated sextortion, a disturbing and increasingly common typology that can devastate the lives and families of its victims.

Financially motivated sextortion occurs when perpetrators, using fake personas, coerce victims to create and send sexually explicit images or videos of themselves, only to threaten to release the material to the victims’ friends and family unless the victims provide payment.

“Financially motivated sextortion schemes have devastating effects on victims and their families,” said FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki. “These schemes can target anyone and often seek to exploit victims’ feelings of helplessness and embarrassment for financial gain. This Notice underscores the importance of suspicious activity reporting to support law enforcement investigations into these abusive schemes and protect Americans from this gross abuse of the U.S. financial system.”

Financially Motivated Sextortion is Dramatically Increasing, Targeting Boys

• The perpetrators of financially motivated sextortion schemes can target anyone; however, minors—especially boys between the ages of 14 and 17—are a particularly vulnerable population.
• According to law enforcement, in recent years, reports of financially motivated sextortion incidents have dramatically increased.
• In 2024, the FBI received nearly 55,000 reports of crimes related to sextortion and extortion, with financial losses totaling $33.5 million, a 59 percent increase in the number of reports received in 2023.
• Tragically, financially motivated sextortion has led to an alarming number of victim suicides.

Perpetrators are Using AI to Carry Out Sextortion and Online Child-Sexual Exploitation

• Recent increases in the availability of generative AI tools have enabled perpetrators to insert a victim’s likeness into realistic, sexually explicit images and videos (i.e., “deepfakes”).
• According to law enforcement, when potential victims refuse to send sexually explicit material, perpetrators have used manipulated content to extort these individuals.
• Since April 2023, the FBI observed an uptick in sextortion victims reporting the use of fake images or videos created from content posted on a victim’s social media page, web postings or non-explicit photos or videos provided by the victim to the perpetrator, or captured during video chats.
• Based on BSA reporting, transactions related to the suspected creation and purchase of illicit AI-generated content are often completed using convertible virtual currency or other payment mechanisms such as prepaid cards, which predators may believe maintain their anonymity.

This Notice Will Help Financial Institutions Flag Suspicious Activity for Law Enforcement

• FinCEN urges financial institutions to be vigilant in identifying and reporting suspicious activity that may be connected with financially motivated sextortion schemes.
• FinCEN is releasing this Notice, along with red flag indicators, to help financial institutions detect and better report this activity by filing Suspicious Activity Reports, which may aid law enforcement in disrupting these actors and prevent further victimization.

Full Notice Available

The full Notice is available here.

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