Crime gangs use bots in sexual extortion of young Australian men
Posted Sun 6 Sep 2026 at 7:23amSun 6 Sep 2026 at 7:23amSun 6 Sep 2026 at 7:23am
In short:
Young Australian men are being targeted by criminal organisations, usually operating from overseas, in sexual extortion attempts.
South Australia Police said three in four sextortion victims were men, with a similar national trend.
Cybercrime and youth mental health advocates say destigmatisation and conversations in school and at home can help young people navigate the risk of sextortion and image-based abuse.
Criminal gangs continue to have Australian men and boys in their sights as targets for sexual extortion, with more than $200,000 defrauded from victims in one state.
Sextortion usually involve scammers ‘catfishing’ victims into sending intimate pictures of themselves, which are then used to solicit money or more explicit material.
South Australia Police received reports from 220 male victims of image-based abuse and sextortion in the last financial year, up from 170 in the previous period.
Financial losses in these crimes reached $217,000 in 2025-26, according to police who said the spike was “significantly influenced” by a small number of incidents, including one victim who was extorted $53,000.
“These offenders deliberately exploit fear, embarrassment and urgency, and we want victims to know they should not give in to those demands,” said SA Police Cybercrime Investigation Section Sergeant David Mitchell.
Male victims, largely aged under 25, accounted for 75 per cent of sextortion reports to SA Police, and nationally it was a similar story.
While women were twice as likely to experience image-based abuse, men were over-represented — almost 90 per cent — as sextortion victims, according to Australia’s eSafety Commissioner.
The eSafety Commissioner said scammers deliberately lured young men by using AI to generate fake but attractive online characters.
Blackmailers also used intimate photos and identity information from previous victims to build credibility with new targets.
“Financial sexual extortion often targets young men, with criminals tricking victims into sharing intimate images of themselves before demanding money and threatening to expose the images to family, friends or the general public,” an eSafety Commissioner spokesperson said.
The targeting of young men has been around for a number of years, said Nicola Palfrey, Head of Clinical Practice at the youth mental health organisation Headspace Australia.
“We think of a lot of image-based abuse being targeted at younger women or female-identifying people, but unfortunately there’s also quite a lot of targeting of young men in this space,” she said.
An Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) report found more than one in 10 adolescents aged 16-18 had experienced sexual extortion in their lifetime, and only a small fraction reported it to authorities.
Crime gangs behind bots
The report also showed while people known to victims can be responsible for non-consensual sharing of intimate images, sextortion attempts were often sophisticated acts by online perpetrators who the victims have never met in person.
“They’re crime gangs … the research and evidence is really clear on that,” Ms Palfrey said.
These gangs, like the Nigeria-based network known as the Yahoo Boys, often used fake accounts on platforms like Tinder, Instagram and Grindr to target victims.
Generative AI, face-swapping and voice-cloning technologies were also used to create increasingly realistic lures, the eSafety Commissioner said.
Large language models have also enabled scammers to industrialise their business model, said Rahat Masood, a cybersecurity researcher at UNSW.
“Most of these accounts are created by the social bots,” Dr Masood said.
“At the back end, it’s the human, but all these accounts have been created by the bots using some scripts.
“It’s really easy to generate it now.“
Once they engage a victim, scammers will move communications to encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram to continue the deception, eSafety found.
According to the AIC, around two in five adolescent victims have had non-intimate images of themselves run through generative AI to create sexualised fakes.
Avoiding tragedy requires community awareness
Ms Palfrey said the consequences of sextortion can be tragic, the most extreme included suicide and self harm.
“We’ve had documented cases where families have been generous enough and concerned enough about this phenomenon to share their stories where young people have taken their lives as a result of exploitation, being feeling cornered, and things escalating very quickly,” she said.
Ms Palfrey said the threat of criminal activity in online spaces presented an opportunity for families to open conversations similar to discussions of puberty, romantic relationships and transitioning to adulthood.
“Online and offline worlds are not separate for young people,”
Ms Palfrey said.
“How you navigate relationships, consent, trust, transparency, all of those sorts of things need to integrate the online and offline worlds … and there’s a space where we have some wisdom, or some experience, or some reassurance to give young people about how they navigate that.”
The eSafety Commissioner’s most recent campaigns have been tailored to assist young male victims, while Dr Masood said some interventions could start in the classroom.
“We need to do more curriculum-based awareness,” he said.
“In our education from the primary school to the high school, we need to include that. Early intervention in the case is extremely important.”
A spokesperson for the eSafety Commissioner said they were “deeply concerned” about the impacts of sexual extortion, which has rapidly become “‘a critical online safety issue” over the last few years.
They recommend victims report any offending to police or the eSafety Commissioner, block the perpetrator and get support when they fall victim to sextortion.