Sask. police alerting parents to be on the lookout for sextortion scams

The Saskatchewan Internet Child Exploitation Unit (ICE) is advising parents and children to be aware of and familiarize themselves with online “Sextortion”.

In September of 2026, the ICE Unit received more than 20 reports of Sextortion from child victims in the province. Sextortion is an under reported crime and, as such, police believe there are more incidents occurring than being reported. Suspects in these cases are often overseas and can be difficult to identify and prosecute.

Most commonly, offenders engage teenage males through chat based social media platforms, often pretending to be a young girl of a similar age to those they are targeting.

Offenders establish a rapport with their victims before coercing them into sending intimate images of themselves. Once the offender receives the images, they threaten to send the images to the young person’s family and friends. They will then extort the youth for money to stop this from occurring.