FinCEN Notice on Financially Motivated Sextortion (FIN-2025-NTC2)

FIN-2025-NTC2 September 8, 2025
FinCEN Notice on Financially Motivated Sextortion The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issuing this Notice to financial institutions1 to assist in identifying and reporting suspicious activity related to financially motivated sextortion, a disturbing and increasingly common typology that can devastate the lives and families of its victims. Financially motivated sextortion2

occurs when perpetrators, using fake personas, coerce victims to create and send sexually explicit images or videos of themselves, only to threaten to release the compromising material to the victims’ friends and family unless the victims provide payment. The perpetrators of financially motivated sextortion schemes can target anyone, with many victims being over the age of 18, according to law enforcement. However, minors— especially boys between the ages of 14 and 173 —are a particularly vulnerable population and have been increasingly victimized in these schemes.4 As such and as highlighted throughout this Notice, many resources to assist victims of these schemes serve minors, and their parents and caregivers. According to law enforcement, in recent years reports of financially motivated sextortion incidents have dramatically increased, prompting law enforcement action against perpetrators, many of whom are based overseas.5 In 2024, the FBI received nearly 55,000 reports of crimes related to

1. See 31 U.S.C. § 5312(a)(2); 31 C.F.R. § 1010.100(t).
2. Sextortion is a crime that often involves adults coercing minors, especially teenagers, into sending explicit images
   online. See Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), “Stop Sextortion” (last visited Aug. 2025). Financially motivated sextortion is primarily motivated by financial gain rather than prurient interest and targets individuals of all ages. See FBI, “Financially Motivated Sextortion” (“FBI: Financially Motivated Sextortion”) (last visited Aug. 2025); FBI Sacramento, “Sextortion: A Growing Threat Preying Upon Our Nation’s Teens” (“FBI Sacramento Sextortion Article”) (Jan. 17, 2024).
3. See FBI: Financially Motivated Sextortion, supra note 2.
4. Financially motivated sextortion schemes that victimize minors are also a form of Online Child Sexual Exploitation
   (OCSE). See Financial Action Task Force (FATF), “Detecting, Disrupting, and Investigating Online Child Sexual Exploitation” (“FATF OCSE Report”) (Mar. 12, 2025), at pp. 5, 7. For more information on other forms of OCSE, see FinCEN, FIN-2021-NTC3, “FinCEN Calls Attention to Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crimes” (Sept. 16, 2021).
5. See, e.g., FBI, “FBI Surges Resources to Nigeria to Combat Financially Motivated Sextortion” (“FBI Operation
   Artemis”) (Apr. 24, 2025); Department of Justice (DOJ), “Ivorian Men Arrested for International “Sextortion” and Money Laundering Scheme Resulting in Minor’s Death” (“DOJ Ivorian Sextortion Scheme”) (May 9, 2025). Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) Filing Request FinCEN requests that financial institutions reference this Notice by including the key term “FIN-2025- SEXTORTION” in SAR Field 2 (Filing Institution Note to FinCEN) and the narrative, select SAR Field 38(z) (Other) as the associated suspicious activity type, and include the term “SEXTORTION” in the text box. If known, enter the subject’s IP address in SAR Field 43.