A Manitowoc County Detective says parents need to keep an eye on their child’s phone if they want to keep them safe from sextortion.
Sextortion is a form of blackmail, which is usually when a scammer asks for a nude photo of the victim and then threatens to show the victim’s family if they don’t pay money.
Unfortunately, some victims have resorted to taking their own lives.
Detective Brandon Radke joined Manitowoc County Drug Unit Member Andy Beck on WOMT’s Be My Guest program and noted that income level or the school a child attends doesn’t matter when it comes to being a victim of sextortion.
“The vast majority of the ones that we tend to deal with are all juveniles in that sense,” he noted. “But really, there’s no age. I can’t say for certain, like it starts at this age or that age. A lot of it is child-dependent.”
It also depends on when a child gets access to a smartphone or the internet.
He also recommends keeping an eye on the apps a child downloads, because some may not appear to be suitable.
“You can download certain applications that may look like something, like a calculator, on the face value of your phone,” he explained. “But yet it’s a hidden photo vault where it’s password-protected, and you can only get into the vault if you have the right password.”
Radke tells parents that if they do allow their child to have access to the internet, they should monitor their phone, even though a level of trust is also necessary.
However, in the end, the safety of a child is paramount.
For more information, visit fbi.gov.
