The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has announced the arrest of 22 Nigerians allegedly involved in a global sextortion scheme that has been linked to more than 20 teen suicides across the United States since 2021.
In a statement published on its website Thursday, April 24, the agency said the arrests were part of a groundbreaking international crackdown, codenamed Operation Artemis, carried out in collaboration with law enforcement agencies in Canada, Australia, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom.
The FBI said it launched Operation Artemis nearly two years ago after receiving thousands of reports involving teenage boys being coerced into sending sexually explicit images online and subsequently blackmailed with threats of exposure unless they paid money.
“As a result of Operation Artemis, FBI investigations led to the arrest of 22 Nigerian subjects, with at least one arrest tied to an American victim who took their own life,” the agency revealed.
The sextortion scheme typically involved predators posing as young women online, luring minors—mostly boys—into sharing nude photos. Once the victims complied, they were extorted for money under the threat that the images would be widely circulated. Even when victims paid, the blackmail often continued, according to investigators.
“Analysis of victims’ phones and social media accounts revealed heartbreaking narratives of young kids enduring frantic negotiations, desperate to protect their privacy,” the FBI stated.
The scope of the crisis has grown dramatically. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received over 34,000 sextortion reports in 2023, a figure that jumped to over 54,000 by the end of the year, with financial losses nearing $65 million across two years.
Between October 2021 and March 2023, more than 12,600 minors—mostly boys—were reportedly targeted, according to data from the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). The NCMEC also reported a surge in financial sextortion complaints, from 10,731 cases in 2022 to 26,718 in 2023.
Similarly, the Australian Federal Police disclosed they now handle around 300 new sextortion cases every month.
FBI Special Agent Matthew Crowley, who interviewed suspects in Nigeria, said many confessed that they viewed sextortion as an easier and faster way to make money compared to other scams like romance fraud or business email compromise.
“One subject said, ‘It’s easy money. I can just move on to the next one if I don’t get any traction,’” Crowley reported. “It makes sense—they could target 40 victims a day, and even if just three paid $200 each, that’s $600 in a day.”
The devastating real-world consequences of the crimes were painfully illustrated by the testimony of an American father whose 16-year-old son died by suicide in 2023 after being targeted.
“Everything he loved—his dreams, his friends, his future—was threatened in an instant,” the grieving father said. “Imagine someone breaking into your home and shooting your son. What these predators did was even worse: they terrified him so much he took his own life.”