report this to the police by calling the non-emergency number 101. If the perpetrator of the crime is overseas there may be limited things the police can do however reporting this will add to the national intelligence of these types of crimes.
If you can, try to collect as much evidence as possible, this would include screenshots of the messages where the blackmail threats were made, bank details they shared with you and any other relevant communication.
We would encourage you to block, stop all communication and report them to the platform where the threats are being made here.
Do not pay any money or meet demands they may request. They want to engage with you so they can threaten you and exert pressure. The amount they ask for is designed to be just enough to encourage you to pay. It will not be enough and they will come back and demand more.
If you have already paid money to the blackmailers, do not send any more. You could try to contact your bank or the platform used to send the money for more advice.
In our experience in dealing with these types of crimes, we find that the perpetrators will quickly lose interest and move on to their next victim when they realise no money will be paid and they have no way of contacting you with more threats.
StopNCII.org is a platform designed to support anyone affected by Non-Consensual Intimate Image (NCII) abuse, and works to digitally hash private sexual content and prevent this from being shared across the platforms of participating industry partners.
To be eligible to hash your content through StopNCII.org, you must:
• Be the person in the images/videos
• Be over the age of 18 in the content
• Have copies of the images/videos you wish to hash stored on your device
• The content is nude, semi-nude or engaging in a sexual act in the imagery.
Now you have blocked all access from the blackmailer contacting you, it's best to review your internet safety and raise your digital privacy settings across all of your social media accounts, and stay vigilant to new or suspicious friend requests. Find more privacy advice here.
Some victims of Sextortion find it reassuring to create Google Alerts. You can set these up with tags for your name so if anything is posted online in your name you will be alerted via an email, here's how you can do this.
We understand how distressing this can be: make sure you reach out for support to help you cope with what has happened. You can find more support services and organisations that might be able to give more help here.
If you have read this information and you still have questions, please get in touch. We may refer you to read this advice page, so please mention that you've already accessed this advice.
We will need to know where they are threatening to share your intimate images and videos and we will do our best to provide you with some more specific advice.