How To Fight Back Against AI Powered Sextortion

Sextortion once depended on convincing a victim to send an intimate image. Generative AI has changed that. In 2022, 17-year-old Jordan DeMay died fewer than five hours after two brothers operating from a hacked Instagram account persuaded him to send a nude photograph and then demanded money. The scheme ultimately targeted more than 100 victims, including at least 11 identified minors. Today, offenders can fabricate convincing images from ordinary photographs, giving them new leverage to threaten victims and potentially operate at greater speed and scale. As the technology changes the crime, law enforcement, policymakers and families have to change their response with it.

The Ogoshi brothers needed DeMay to send a photograph. Generative AI removed that requirement. On Feb. 28, 2025, Elijah Heacock, a 16-year-old from Glasgow, Kentucky, died by suicide after receiving a text message that contained an AI-generated nude image of himself and a demand for $3,000. His mother, Shannon Heacock, later wrote that someone sent 150 threatening messages in 45 minutes. Elijah sent $50 against the $3,000 demand. His family noted every image was AI generated.

As the father of two sons, I read the Heacock family’s account the way any parent of a teenager reads it: with intense fear, concern and anger. As a former child exploitation prosecutor, I read it with a resolve to keep targeting the bad actors who are supercharging their operations with artificial intelligence.

The FBI says offenders can use ordinary photographs of children to fabricate abuse material, which means any photograph posted by a school, a team or a proud relative can theoretically supply raw material for this crime.

A Crime Measured In Hours

How AI Is Changing Sextortion

The fabricated image supplies the leverage. A teenager with a public profile faces a convincing explicit image of himself, a countdown and a list of friends and family drawn from the same accounts. The FBI has interviewed victims as young as eight.