Homeland Security Investigations has seen a 300% increase in foreign victims of financial sextortion, according to the head of the center that investigates cybercrimes at the Department of Homeland Security.
“We have seen an 86% drop in domestic victims of financial sextortion since that time, unfortunately, what we’ve seen is almost 300% increase in foreign victims of financial sextortion,” Mike Prado the head of HSI’s Cyber Crime Center told ABC News.
Sextortion is when a victim sends explicit material to a scammer and then is threatened with public posting unless they pay the scammer money.
The HSI Cyber Crimes Center focuses on all things cyber – but they primarily focus on online child sexual exploitation, according to Prado.
“The threat that we talk about has evolved so rapidly from even a few years ago that we’re deploying new tools, new techniques, new proactive measures and new preemptive strategies to try to combat the continued prevalence of online child sexual exploitation and abuse,” Prado said.
The two most prevalent areas that sextortion scams take place is in the Ivory Coast and in Nigeria, according to Prado. Homeland Security Investigations has an agent detailed to the Ivory Coast to work with local authorities due to the non-extradition rules they have.
