JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Speaker Series focusing on the issues of cybercrime and financial sextortion was recently held in Jacksonville, aiming to raise awareness and develop strategies to combat these crimes, which have seen a significant increase in recent years.
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Traditional sextortion involves perpetrators coercing victims into sharing intimate images, while financial sextortion involves criminals demanding money from victims.
Many of the criminals who are committing these crimes operate from overseas, and tragically, many of their victims have resorted to suicide.
Cybercrime expert Paul Raffile highlighted the alarming trend of sextortion, particularly among young boys involved in high school sports, noting that the number of sextortion cases has surged since 2021, something he attributes to the fact that a lot of financial payment platforms allowed teens on their platforms after that year.
“We want to raise awareness as a first goal,” Raffile said. “We also want to help law enforcement agencies to detect, prosecute and investigate these crimes...there have been recent successes here in the US extraditing some of these criminals, and we can do so much more of that.”
Now, he and State Attorney Melissa Nelson plan to meet with the FBI, Homeland Security Secret Service, and local law enforcement agencies to start a task force relating to sextortion.
Nelson echoed the urgency of the situation, stating that sextortion is a pervasive threat not unique to Jacksonville.
“It’s not unique to Jacksonville, but we want to make sure that our local community is doing what we can to mitigate the threat, to make sure that people are aware of it, and certainly I hope that it becomes a model that other states could and other areas in our state could replicate,” she said.
Over the past 18 months, the State Attorney’s Office has received several criminal referrals and complaints related to sextortion. Victims have been reporting these incidents through various channels, including local law enforcement and the FBI hotline.
With a “brainstorming session” coming up on Friday, Nelson expressed her hope that a central hotline could be established to provide the community with a resource for reporting and addressing sextortion cases.
