Police arrest 22 men over sextortion after NSW teen dies in bedroom

Trigger warning: This article contains descriptions of child abuse

A dedicated operation targeting sextortion has resulted in the arrest of 22 suspects in Nigeria.

Two of those men are allegedly linked to the death of a 16-year-old NSW boy, who was found dead in his bedroom in 2023.

The teen had believed he was talking to a woman of European background on social media, when he began to receive increasingly sexualised images.

He was initially lured into the conversation with non-sexual “banter”, before he started receiving bikini shots.

“As the conversation progressed, there were further images exchanged,” NSW Police detective superintendent Matthew Craft said at the time.

The teen was coerced into sending back an image to his alleged perpetrator, which was then used to threaten him — the boy was told to pay $500 or the image would be sent to his friends and family.

The boy died of suicide in his bedroom within seven hours of receiving the threatening messages.

Police discovered the threats in his phone during the investigation into his death, and described the messages as “horrific”.

“These crimes are calculated and devastating, often pushing vulnerable young people into extreme distress,” AFP said on Monday.

The crime impacts thousands of teens globally.

The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) received 1554 sextortion-related reports in the 2024 financial year alone.

More than 20 teenage suicides in the US have been linked to sextortion-related cases since 2021, AFP said.

“While many victims were based in North America, the ripple effects of the offending extended to Australia and other nations,” AFP said.

Two AFP officers were deployed to Nigeria as part of Operation Artemis, which is led by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in partnership with the AFP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The two men linked to the 16-year-old NSW boy’s sextortion case were found and arrested in a slum village. They were charged over the sextortion, but not the teen’s death.

Another 20 Nigerian-nationals men were arrested as part of Operation Artemis.

“Since the successful conclusion of the arrest phase of Operation Artemis in early 2023, the AFP observed an immediate reduction in sextortion-related reports,” AFP said.

“The targeting of Australian children by offenders online remains ongoing, however.”

The AFP-led ThinkUKnow program has an online blackmail and sexual extortion response kit aimed at young people, aged 13 to 17, and is available from the ThinkUKnow and ACCCE websites.

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