The conversations all began the same way. A social media message would arrive out of the blue from a girl the boy did not know.
The girl would chat with the boy, even flirt, until the conversation turned sexual. Then, she would ask for pictures, or maybe videos, of the boy naked or in sexually revealing poses. When he complied, her demands would intensify. Suddenly, she needed more pictures, cash, or gift cards for online games and Target — or else she would share the photos at school and online.
These conversations are at the heart of a scheme that came to light in a town an hour north of New York City this month when the police in Stony Point in Rockland County arrested a boy in middle school. They accused the boy of impersonating a girl online and blackmailing at least six male classmates at the nearby Fieldstone Middle School.
The boy, whose name has not been released because he is a minor, was taken into custody in June after the end of the school year. He was booked on felony charges a little over a week ago, following months of investigation, according to Andrew Kryger of the Stony Point Police Department, the lead detective on the case.
The boy was charged with using a child in a sexual performance, promoting a sexual performance by a child and possessing a sexual performance by a child. He is expected to appear in family court, where the case will be prosecuted, within the next week, Detective Kryger said. The boy’s age has not been released, but the school is for seventh and eighth graders, who are typically 12 to 14.
“This whole thing was mind-boggling to me,” Detective Kryger said on Saturday. “I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’m in my 26th year in law enforcement.”
The investigation began in February after a student learned that a friend had been targeted and went to get help from a police officer who helps guard the school, according to the police. Then a handful of students came forward and told the officer and administrators they were being coerced online.
The suspect created fake social media accounts where he posed as a girl, using photos from the internet, Detective Kryger said. He messaged students whom he appeared to have chosen randomly, the detective said, gaining their trust before asking them to send the compromising photos and videos.
After they did, the boy pressured them for more, threatening to share the explicit photos he already had with their friends and online if they did not do so. He also asked some victims to send him money in Apple Cash or gift cards worth up to $100 at Amazon, the Roblox game platform and Target, Detective Kryger said.
Some students complied, but others asked their parents for the money and were forced to reveal what was really going on, the detective said.
Kris Felicello, the superintendent of the North Rockland Central School District, said in a statement that the school was working with the police to plan a forum about sexually explicit online blackmail at the middle school in the coming weeks.
“Our close-knit North Rockland Central School District continues to support the victims — and we continue to admire their courage,” Mr. Felicello said.
Sextortion cases, as such schemes are called, have exploded in recent years, becoming one of the fastest-growing categories of cybercrime. The F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security recorded more than 13,000 cases of financial sextortion targeting at least 12,600 minors between October 2021 and March 2023, according to the agencies. Of those cases, the majority of the victims were boys, and the schemes may have led to at least 14 suicides during that period. The F.B.I. also reported a 20 percent increase in cases targeting minors from September 2022 to March 2023, compared with the same period a year earlier.
Last year, the parent company of Snapchat polled more than 1,000 American teens and young adults and found that nearly half who said they had shared intimate photos online had been threatened with sextortion. The issue was more prevalent among young men, the survey found.
A number of high-profile cases have made headlines. In 2024, two brothers from Nigeria were sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison for a scheme in which one victim, a Michigan high school student, died by suicide.
During a news conference last week announcing the charges in Rockland County, the Stony Point police urged parents to speak with their children about threats online.
Detective Kryger said he hoped any additional victims would feel comfortable sharing their experiences. He said parents should be aware of the dangers phones and tech devices can pose, “especially for young kids who don’t understand, whose brains are still formulating.”
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
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