Financial gain

Last Updated 5/30/25

Definition: The desire to extract money, financial benefits, or valuable goods from targets.

Abuse Types:

Intimate image abuse (IIA) Sexual extortion Online impersonation

Perpetrators:

Stranger Formal group

Targets:

Public figure Private individual Organization, group, community

Impact Types:

Economic harm Infringement of rights & freedoms Psychological & emotional harm

Examples

Financial sextortion demanding payment to prevent image sharing
Romance scams building fake relationships to extract money
Threatening to release private information unless cryptocurrency payments are made

Description

Financial gain drives both individual opportunists and increasingly professional operations, particularly in sextortion schemes.

While some perpetrators work alone targeting vulnerable individuals, organized sextortion schemes particularly exemplify the commercialized approach. Thorn's analysis shows financial sextortion perpetrators operating from Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire using formulaic scripts to maximize efficiency (Thorn & NCMEC, 2024). This commercialized approach—whether individual or group-based—distinguishes financially-motivated abuse through established payment processing methods, primarily gift cards and Cash App.

References

Thorn & National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). (2024). Trends in financial sextortion: An investigation of sextortion reports in NCMEC CyberTipline data. https://info.thorn.org/hubfs/Research/Thorn_TrendsInFinancialSextortion_June2024.pdf

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