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At a recent hearing on cybersecurity organized by the sheriff of Bucks County, Pa., authorities discussed how organized groups of cyber criminals are attacking American youth with sextortion.
(TNS) — Organized groups of Nigerian cybercriminals are contacting American kids via social media and gaming, befriending them, and exchanging nude photos with them. When they have the American child’s likeness, they blackmail them, demanding money.
That was just one of the disturbing revelations during a hearing on cybersecurity in Northampton Monday, convened by Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran.
“The safety of our children in this digital world is number one,” said Harran. “Our kids live online. They learn, socialize, and play in a digital space empowered by smartphones in their pockets. But this constant connectivity comes with significant risks.”
Harran held the hearing to spur legislation to bolster digital literacy and shield children from online harm. Harran said the Sheriff and District Attorney’s Offices will launch a pilot program with Bucks County school districts to enhance digital safety.
Also participating in the hearing were state Reps. Joe Hogan (R-Penndel) and Kristin Marcell (R-Richboro), along with District Attorney Jennifer Schorn. Northampton Police Chief Steven LeCompte and Supervisor Adam Selisker also attended.
Schorn said there are two categories of perpetrators: Those who prey on children for their own sexual gratification and the sextortioners who target teens and young adults.
“This is truly a criminal organized enterprise, where they’re targeting victims to exploit them for their financial gain,” said Schorn. “It is so organized… It’s so swift that we’re seeing catastrophic outcomes when children take their own lives because they don’t see a way out.”
Graeme Page, founder of Skyll and a board member of the Safe Surfin’ Foundation, testified that he started a social media marketing company at the age of 11 and went on to work with Disney and Warner Bros. When he was 17, his girlfriend, “out of the blue,” committed suicide. It turned out she was the victim of sextortion on Instagram.
“It opened my eyes that social media is not a safe place. There’s a negative underbelly to it. It drove me to create Skyll to protect kids across the country and the world who are facing these crimes,” Page said.
“Kids today are targeted by these organized crime groups, often in Nigeria,” said Page. “These organized crime groups use algorithms to target kids systematically.”
Page said organized Nigerian criminals have increased sextortion by 1,000 percent in the last 18 months.
He described the strategies used by the scammers, like sending a flirtatious message while pretending to be a peer or someone from their school.
“And they say, ‘I think you’re cute.’ They start sexting, flirting, and they encourage the kids to send them a nude photo after sending one of their own, which is often fake. The kid does. Then they turn around and say, ‘I have your photo. Now I’m going to blackmail you for $800, and if you don’t pay it, I’m going to send it to everyone in your school, your family, your friends.”
“This is an epidemic that’s affecting our kids horribly,” Page said, adding: “These were kids reaching out to us at the worst moment of their lives.”
Page worked closely with the state of West Virginia to pass legislation to mandate cyber safety education for all kids.
West Virginia State Sen. Vince Deeds said the new law requires online safety be taught to all public students.
“It’s a crisis situation for our children,” said Deeds, a former state trooper and the chief investigator for the Greenbrier County Prosecutor’s Office. “We really hope this will make a difference for some of our most vulnerable victims, our children.”
Hogan told DV Journal he may sponsor a bill based on West Virginia’s. He believes it will have bipartisan support, noting that Sen. John Kane (D-Delaware) had previously proposed a similar bill.
A law that increased the penalty for those who sextort people, causing them to harm themselves or commit suicide, that was sponsored by Rep. K.C. Tomlinson (R-Bensalem) was named in honor of Lindsey Piccone, 22, a victim of sextortion who died by suicide. Gov. Tom Wolf (D) signed it into law in 2022.
“My bill increased penalties for predators who commit this online crime. When I was growing up, I had never even heard of the word sextortion. Today, we live in a different world and, unfortunately, these incidents happen all too often,” said Tomlinson, who could not attend the hearing.
Skyll developed a program called “Deputy” that kids can talk to, an internet 911, that is “peer-to-peer based on AI twins, designed to feel like a support buddy,” he said.
Working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s cyber tipline, they’re able to use a program to take down nude photos being used to sextort kids. “The take-it-down tool is an incredibly powerful piece of software,” he said. The child uploads the photo that is being used against them. The photo is turned into a “hash value” that is sent out to Instagram, Snapchat and “even porn sites.”
All the participating sites look for that hash value and put a block on it so it can’t be seen, shared or spread, “essentially rendering it useless for the blackmailer.”
Hogan said it was very troubling to hear about the overseas groups targeting children.
“That is a whole different scale from what I was prepared to hear about today,” said Hogan.
© 2025 Delaware Valley Journal, West Chester, Pa. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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