Schools' 'sextortion epidemic' alert: Teachers are warned foreign gangs are ... trends now

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Teachers were given an unprecedented alert yesterday about pupils being targeted in 'sextortion' scams.

The National Crime Agency warned all 570,000 primary and secondary teachers across Britain that children as young as five are at risk.

It is the first time the NCA has issued a national alert to schools and experts say it is urgently needed to stem a 'sextortion epidemic'.

The number of children targeted by criminal gangs has risen by 266 per cent in just two years. The NCA said 243 fell victim in 2020 but this rocketed to 890 in 2022. 

Ruthless criminal gangs from West Africa and South East Asia are luring in children online, tricking them into believing they are in a genuine relationship or friendship with someone their own age before demanding they share intimate photographs or film themselves on a webcam.

Blackmailers then threaten to release nude or semi-nude photos of them, either real or fake, to their friends and family unless they pay up.

The NCA warned yesterday that at least three children killed themselves as a result. In December, Murray Dowey, 16, from Dunblane, Perthshire, took his own life hours after being targeted in a sextortion blackmail plot with potential links to Nigeria.