PHOENIX — A disturbing trend is targeting teenagers which in turn is raising concerns in a Valley community.
It's called sextortion.
It happens when teens are tricked into sending explicit photos of themselves to someone they think they can trust, only to turn around and be blackmailed for money.
A Valley mom is sharing her insight on the disturbing trend after a warning was posted in a Facebook group called Living Chandler.
Katey McPherson is a mother of four and also the director of professional development for Bark for Schools, an AI app used to protect children from exploitation.
"We're seeing a huge targeting of boys specifically ages 13-18," McPherson explained. "People pretending to be personable and trustworthy, taking advantage of a particular group of people."
McPherson points to several options when it comes to protecting your kids and teens, instead of accepting this form of blackmail.
"A lot of people are just like yeah, this happens all the time but they don’t understand the gravity of a young boy or girl facing this and other people at school being sent these photos," she added.
The recent anonymous post alerted parents to the problem, hoping to remind everyone, that unfortunately, this is happening, even disclosing "they monitor their teen's app use but this one slipped by."
"The extortion part of this is when the person says, if you don't send me $500 then I'm sending this to your whole school, and then they do, they do," McPherson said.
While catching each threat isn't easy, McPherson said you should have a conversation with your kids about the threat, even if it's an uncomfortable one.
"Talking to them about how someone is going to send you an unsolicited nude photo and then ask for one in return. I have four girls, two of the four have already been solicited and have already gotten nude photos of classmates sent to them unsolicited, so it's happening to everyone and it's happening very young."
The FBI warned parents less than six months ago about this disgusting trend, telling 12News that in 2022 there were at least 3,000 sextortion cases, primarily involving boys.
Sadly of those, there were more than a dozen reported suicides associated with the incidents of sextortion.
"They're so ashamed and they feel like a burden, and they feel like they've disappointed their parents, so the searches of teens who have killed themselves within 30 minutes of this happening include, what do I do, what if I'm ashamed, how to kill yourself, it goes very quickly and impulsively for boys," McPherson added.
Many scammers are in foreign countries and can be extremely difficult to trace.
It is extremely important to tell kids to watch for red flags with interactions on social media.
"If the conversation starts going south and they're asking for pictures of body parts, that's red flag one, red flag two, is they're asking you to go from one app to another, text to Snapchat, text to Instagram, text to WhatsApp, third red flag is asking for money."
Parents should keep the conversation open and discourage children from sending any elicit photos to anyone.
Additionally, parents should monitor the social media of their kids.
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