South Moravian police investigate two sextortion cases

Police in the South Moravia region of the Czech Republic reported two separate incidents of sextortion over the weekend. In both cases, perpetrators used social media to target young men, obtaining intimate photographs to facilitate blackmail.

In the first instance, an individual obtained intimate images through online communication and threatened to distribute them to the victim's friends unless a ransom was paid. In the second, more sophisticated case, a perpetrator posed as a young woman to exchange explicit images before claiming to be only 14 years old. The attacker then threatened to report the interaction to the police and the victim's family to extort a large sum of money.

Police spokesperson David Chaloupka warned that scammers frequently use fake identities to build trust before initiating blackmail. Authorities advise victims not to pay any ransoms, as doing so often leads to further demands. Police also noted that artificial intelligence can now be used to create highly convincing fake intimate imagery, meaning the existence of actual compromising photos is not always a requirement for the threat.