Sextortion is on the rise in St. Albert, and one local cop is calling on youths to speak up about it.
People across St. Albert will wear pink this Feb. 28 to mark Pink Shirt Day — a national event where people take a stand against bullying by donning pink shirts.
Many St. Albert RCMP officers will wear pink T-shirt pins on their uniforms to mark the day, said Cst. MJ Burroughs in a phone and email interview. This year, police are using the day to shed light on the latest trend in cyberbullying: sextortion.
“Sextortion online has increased dramatically with youth since the pandemic,” Burroughs said, both in Canada and in St. Albert.
Burroughs said the Canadian Centre for Child Protection saw a 150 per cent jump in sextortion cases between December 2021 and May 2022 because of increased use of the Internet during the COVID-19 pandemic. These cases have continued to rise since then, with Cybertip.ca (Canada’s national tip-line for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children) receiving about 10 reports per day last year.
Burroughs said the St. Albert RCMP received about 39 reports of sextortion of youths and adults between January 2023 and Feb. 12, 2024.
Crime online
Sextortion is when someone online threatens to send a sexual image or video of a subject to others unless that subject pays them or provides more sexual content, reports Cybertip.ca. That online agency received 2,500 reports of sextortion in 2023, 79 per cent of which occurred on Instagram or Snapchat.
Sextortion typically happens when a criminal befriends a victim and asks for an explicit video or image, often after sending an explicit image of what they say is of themselves, Burroughs said. Once the victim sends an image, the blackmail begins, often accompanied by threats of violence or exposure.
Many sextortion attempts are done by organized crime, said Sgt. Kerry Shima of the RCMP’s Integrated Child Exploitation unit. While Cybertip.ca reports that about 90 per cent of the reports it receives involve male victims, Shima said Alberta’s victims tend to be a more evenly split between male and female. Sextortion rings typically demand explicit photos from females that they use to trick and blackmail money out of males.
“It’s very much a financially motivated crime for these organized crime groups,” he said.
Burroughs and Shima said sextortion victims often feel ashamed, embarrassed, and reluctant to seek help. This can lead to depression, self-harm, and suicide, as was the case with B.C. cyberbullying victim Amanda Todd.
Don’t take the bait
Preventing sextortion doesn’t mean banning youths from sending nude images of themselves to others, Shima said. Instead, parents should build trust with their children by talking with them about consent, setting boundaries, and what to do when something goes wrong after sharing such images.
If someone tries to sextort you, break off contact immediately and do not give in to their demands, Burroughs and Shima said. The criminals behind these acts will give up and move on unless you give them what they want; if you do, they will continue to extort you, typically with more frequent and more violent threats.
Shima said victims should block the extorter online, preserve their online accounts, take screenshots of the offending conversations, and bring the digital devices involved to the police. The police can use programs such as Project Arachnid and Take It Down to scan the Internet for the blackmailed images and send takedown notices to anyone hosting them, limiting their spread. They can also try to find the perpetrator and lay charges.
Burroughs encouraged youths to report cases of sextortion to a trusted adult.
“Don’t think you’re alone. Ask for help.”
Visit www.cybertip.ca/en/online-harms/sextortion for more information.
