The Moldovan police are joining a Europe-wide awareness raising campaign, called #Say NO, against a widespread, but largely underreported online crime often referred to as sextorsion. The National Police Inspectorate’s Cybercrime Center will be in charge of the campaign in our country, IPN reports.

Sextorsion, also called ‘webcam blackmailing’, is a form of digital blackmail where sexual information or images are used to extort sexual material, sexual favors or money from children. A report released by Europol revealed that victims as young as 7 years old are being targeted online.

When targeting a minor, offenders have two main motivations: a sexual interest in children, where the objective is the procurement of sexual material depicting the child or a sexual encounter offline; or an economic interest, where the objective is to gain financially from the extortion.

Europol’s message to those who are targeted is “don’t pay and don’t feel embarrassed to report it to the police”.

Euorpol offers these instructions for children in danger: if someone threatens you with sharing sexual photos or videos of you unless you send them more or pay them money, follow these steps: don’t share more, don’t pay anything; preserve evidence and don’t delete anything; stop the communication with the offender; and report it to the police.

For more details on how to protect children online, members of the public are encouraged to visit www.siguronline.md or call the police 022577153 or 078710293.

Law enforcement from 28 EU member countries, as well as from Norway and Switzerland, have joined the campaign.