AI-powered 'nudify' apps are driving a deadly wave of digital blackmail, and children are particularly at risk
After a Kentucky teenager died by suicide this year, his parents discovered he had received threatening texts demanding $3,000 to suppress an AI-generated nude image of him.
The tragedy underscores how so-called sextortion scams targeting children are growing around the world, particularly with the rapid proliferation of "nudify" apps - AI tools that digitally strip off clothing or generate sexualised imagery.
Elijah Heacock, 16, was just one of thousands of American minors targeted by such digital blackmail, which has spurred calls for more action from tech platforms and regulators.
His parents told US media that the text messages ordered him to pay up or an apparently AI-generated nude photo would be sent to his family and friends.
"The people that are after our children are well organised," John Burnett, the boy's father, said in a CBS News interview.
"They are well financed, and they are relentless. They don't need the photos to be real, they can generate whatever they want, and then they use it to blackmail the child."
US investigators were looking into the case, which comes as nudify apps - which rose to prominence targeting celebrities - are being increasingly weaponised against children.
The FBI has reported a "horrific increase" in sextortion cases targeting US minors, with victims typically males between the ages of 14 and 17. The threat has led to an "alarming number of suicides," the agency warned.
Instruments of abuse
In a recent survey, Thorn, a non-profit focused on preventing online child exploitation, found that six percent of American teens have been a direct victim of deepfake nudes.
"Reports of fakes and deepfakes - many of which are generated using these 'nudifying' services - seem to be closely linked with reports of financial sextortion, or blackmail with sexually explicit images," the British watchdog Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said in a report last year.
"Perpetrators no longer need to source intimate images from children because images that are convincing enough to be harmful - maybe even as harmful as real images in some cases - can be produced using generative AI."
The IWF identified one "pedophile guide" developed by predators that explicitly encouraged perpetrators to use nudifying tools to generate material to blackmail children. The author of the guide claimed to have successfully blackmailed some 13-year-old girls.
The tools are a lucrative business.
A new analysis of 85 websites selling nudify services found they may be collectively worth up to $36 million (R644 million) a year.
The analysis from Indicator, a US publication investigating digital deception, estimates that 18 of the sites made between $2.6 million and $18.4 million over the six months to May.
Most of the sites rely on tech infrastructure from Google, Amazon, and Cloudflare to operate, and remain profitable despite crackdowns by platforms and regulators, Indicator said.
'Whack-a-mole'
The proliferation of AI tools has led to new forms of abuse impacting children, including pornography scandals at universities and schools worldwide, where teenagers created sexualised images of their own classmates.
A recent Save the Children survey found that one in five young people in Spain have been victims of deepfake nudes, with those images shared online without their consent.
Earlier this year, Spanish prosecutors said they were investigating three minors in the town of Puertollano for allegedly targeting their classmates and teachers with AI-generated pornographic content and distributing it in their school.
In the United Kingdom, the government this year made creating sexually explicit deepfakes a criminal offense, with perpetrators facing up to two years in jail.
And in May, US President Donald Trump signed the bipartisan "Take It Down Act," which criminalises the non-consensual publication of intimate images, while also mandating their removal from online platforms.
Meta also recently announced it was filing a lawsuit against a Hong Kong company behind a nudify app called Crush AI, which it said repeatedly circumvented the tech giant's rules to post ads on its platforms.
But despite such measures, researchers say AI nudifying sites remain resilient.
"To date, the fight against AI nudifiers has been a game of whack-a-mole," Indicator said, calling the apps and sites "persistent and malicious adversaries."
AFP
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The South African
6 hours ago
- The South African
Was the Butler 'assassination attempt' on Donald Trump staged?
Is it remotely possible that showman, actor, TV producer and all-round heavyweight bullsh*tter Donald J. Trump was involved in staging the alleged 'assassination attempt' on him in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July last year? Because as many analysts, investigators and internet sleuths are pointing out…the 'official explanation' is riddled with weird and confounding inconsistencies. In a recent episode of his talk show, MOATS, British MP and political analyst, George Galloway, raised an interesting, important and pertinent question: 'Whatever happened to the guy…who came so close to murdering Donald Trump at Butler, PA?' Galloway asked. 'Why do I know less about him than I know about the latest K-pop star singing, You're My Little Soda Pop ? Why do I know more about Little Soda Pop than I do about the guy who drew blood, in broad daylight, by firing a bullet into the face of the man who was about to be the president of the United States?' 'I know nothing about him,' Galloway said. 'Haven't seen his manifesto. Know nothing about his motives, his associates, or who he was in touch with in the minutes, hours and days…before he came so close to changing the entire course of world history. 'Is that not a bit suspicious? Just saying…' Good question. Suspicious indeed. And it gets even more suspicious. On the anniversary of the Butler assassination attempt this year, Congress released a report detailing failures by the United States Secret Service (USSS) that allowed the 13 July 2024 attempted assassination of presidential candidate Donald J. Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, to nearly succeed. The report unveiled by US Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, exposes a disturbing pattern of denials, mismanagement, and missed warning signs – some occurring just minutes before shots were fired. Among the failures by the USSS documented in the report are 'inexcusable negligence, communication breakdowns, systemic weaknesses, and limited accountability'. The report states (summary): 'On July 13, 2024, a gunman climbed onto the roof of the American Glass Research building near the Butler Farm Show rally and opened fire, striking four individuals, including President Trump, and killing firefighter Corey Comperatore. The shooter had been reported to the Secret Service as suspicious and with a rangefinder at least 25 minutes earlier.' 'What happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, was not just a tragedy—it was a scandal. The United States Secret Service failed to act on credible intelligence, failed to coordinate with local law enforcement, and failed to prevent an attack that nearly took the life of a then-former president,' said chairman Paul. 'Despite those failures, no one has been fired. That's unacceptable. This was not a single lapse in judgment. It was a complete breakdown of security at every level—fueled by bureaucratic indifference, a lack of clear protocols, and a shocking refusal to act on direct threats.' Almost as if responding to Galloway's good question, political and media (and 'conspiracy theory') analysts, Keaton Weiss and Russell Dobular from Due Dissidence recently did a collating deep dive into the 'suspicious' mystery behind Trump's near murder and would-be assassin. In his introduction, Dobular announced, 'We're going to go Oliver Stone on this.' Citing director Stone's masterpiece film, JFK , he said, 'Stone presented a theory, and that theory was: Even if you don't think this is what happened, the 'official story' is not what happened, based on the evidence.' He added, 'There are a lot of weird things about this assassination attempt.' In a video titled, More Questions than Answers , here's what DD unpacked… The duo started by playing a clip from a video posted on X by alt news/media site HOT SPOT. The description in the post says, 'Footage of the attempted Trump assassination in Butler, PA shows a man lining up photographers at the precise moment the most effective campaign photo in US history was captured.' After the shooter fired on Trump, Keaton Weiss pointed out how bizarre it was that the Secret Service agent was concerned about coordinating the photographers. 'Your job is to protect the president, not the photographers, right?' Weiss said. 'Why are you corralling them? It's weird.' Dobular, a self-admitted 'theatre dork', questioned the strange decision by the SS to bring Trump 'downstage centre' (the part of a stage that's closest to the audience). 'This is an active shooter situation,' Dobular said. 'Why would you bring him downstage centre? That to me is the most suspicious part of this footage.' The video clip got to the part where shots have just rung out, and the SS have Trump on the ground and covered. And then, they again do something that was bewilderingly strange and reckless. They pick Trump up, exposing him to the shooter. Dobular paused the clip and asked the obvious question. 'So they got him down, which is what you'd expect. Why would you lift him up? Why would you expose him like that?' THE WAPO BODYCAM POV – TRUMP PAUSES FOR A PHOTO OP Russell then ran a clip of another angle – from the Washington Post; the POV of a photographer wearing a GoPro or body cam. 'This was definitely one of the photographers that the Secret Service guy was corralling', Weiss indicated. To which Dobular responded, 'Again, why would you position him like that in an active shooter situation? That is really the most suspicious thing in all of this.' In the POV clip, Trump can be seen forcing his SS guards to pause his rapid exit, as he raised his fist for that iconic photo-op moment, and shouted to the crowd, 'Fight!'. Dobular brought up another X post, by alt news/media platform, RAWSALERTS. It's allegedly a photo of the bullet whizzing past Trump's head. He then brought up several photos from different accounts questioning the blood, and lack of scar tissue on Trump's ear – and how quickly it seemed to heal. Commenting on the images and posts, Dobular said: 'A lot of people have pointed out the ear, claiming the blood should be dripping. Some pointed out there's no scarring in the ear. I personally don't think you see scar tissue there.' Dobular also ran a video of interviews with multiple witnesses who pointed out the shooter in advance when they saw him behaving 'suspiciously' and climbing onto the roof, but were ignored by police and SS. By late July, less than two weeks after the shooting, new photos emerged of Trump's ear apparently miraculously completely healed. On 8 August 2024, less than a month after the shooting – and the Republican National Convention where Trump was seen wearing a bandage on his ear – Trump was interviewed by the media at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, without the ear bandage. When a reporter asked about the absence of the bandage, in true narcissistic Trump fashion, The Don answered: 'I'm a fast healer. It's a helluva shot, but I'm a fast healer. Yeah, pretty much recovered.' 'I got very lucky. It just hit the lobe – as they call it,' he added. On 28 February, Elon Musk made another appearance on the Joe Rogan show. The subject of Trump's near-assassination came up. Along with some good questions about some very strange inconsistencies. As Rogan pointed out, the house of the (alleged) shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, had been 'professionally' scrubbed, and Crooks had no internet or social media footprint. Here Musk interjected, 'Yeah, there's zero per cent chance that he has no social media footprint.' Rogan continued, 'With this kid, we don't know anything, right? And everyone's stopped asking questions. There was never a formal report or press conference where they detailed all the information we know currently and where the investigation stands. At the moment, what we know is you have a very young kid who was filmed, they knew he was there – with a rangefinder – half an hour before the event.' He pointed out, 'You also know that CNN streamed it live – which I do not believe they did for any other rally and certainly not for a rally that's in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania.' Among the other anomalies in the case, Rogan also brought up 'the kid had 5 phones, that's a lot of phones for a 20-year-old kid. One of them was tracked to outside FBI offices several times.' 'There's a lot of weird shit', Rogan added. THE HIGGINS REPORT – 'THE BODY IS GONE' In early August 2024, Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins, a member of the House Task Team investigating the assassination attempt, was in Butler asking the coroner if he could investigate the body of Thomas Crooks – only to be told, 'the body is gone'. In his report submitted to the Task Force Chairman on 12 August, Higgins wrote: 'My effort to examine Crooks' body on Monday, 5 August, caused quite a stir and revealed a disturbing fact… the FBI released the body for cremation 10 days after J13.' 'On J23, Crooks was gone', Higgins reported. 'Nobody knew this until 5 August, including the County Coroner, law enforcement, Sheriff, etc.' Higgins said the Butler County Coroner 'technically had legal authority over the body, but I spoke with the Coroner, and he would have never released Crooks' body to the family for cremation or burial without specific permission from the FBI'. He also wrote that 'similar to scrubbing crime scene biological evidence … this action by the FBI can only be described as an obstruction to any investigative effort.' 'THE 'OFFICIAL STORY' IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED' In the course of the deep dive by Dissidence , Russell Dobular said, 'In my entire life, there has never been a would-be assassin as invisibilized as this assassin. I didn't know his name until I did the research for this.' Wrapping up their video, Dobular made his position and personal opinion on the 'assassination attempt' clear. 'Given how things have evolved since Trump became president…I believe this was staged to ensure that he would become president', he said. 'Nobody could ever prove that – but that's my opinion based on the evidence.' 'There's a lot of weird stuff. I think we can say, conclusively, that the story we're being told is not the truth. Clearly, there is a cover-up here. Whatever you believe about that, there's a cover-up.' He added, 'What the nature of it is, we don't know.' Let us know by leaving a comment below or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X, and Bluesky for the latest news.
The Citizen
7 hours ago
- The Citizen
South African woman arrested in Bali for alleged drug smuggling
Indonesia has some of the world's toughest drug laws, including the death penalty for traffickers. Two people from Brazil and South Africa have been charged in Indonesia for allegedly trying to smuggle four kilograms (8.8 pounds) of drugs into Bali, the anti-narcotics agency said Thursday. The pair were travelling separately when they were arrested on 13 July at the resort island's international airport and could face the death penalty if found guilty. The Brazilian man was allegedly carrying two plastic bags containing just over three kilograms of cocaine in his backpack and luggage, I Made Sinar Subawa, from the local anti-narcotics agency, told a news conference. ALSO READ: Child of South African drug mule in Mauritius prison to return home Made said the suspect was a courier and had been told to deliver the package to a man living in Bali. The South African woman was arrested after arriving from Singapore on the same day with nearly one kilogram of crystal methamphetamine allegedly hidden in her clothing. 'Based on the interrogation, she confessed that she was ordered to carry the meth from Johannesburg to Bali, to be delivered to someone in Bali,' Made said. Indonesia has some of the world's toughest drug laws, including the death penalty for traffickers. There are dozens of traffickers on death row in the country, including a cocaine-smuggling British grandmother. ALSO READ: OR Tambo International now a hub for drug mules — expert Indonesia last carried out executions in 2016, killing one Indonesian and three Nigerian drug convicts by firing squad. Drug smuggling cases This is not the first case of South African women being arrested in foreign countries for drug smuggling. Mauritius has seen multiple arrests of South African women involved in drug trafficking. A South African woman was arrested after allegedly being caught with drugs with an estimated value of Rs 8 million (just over R3.3 million) at the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Airport in Mauritius on 17 September 2019. ALSO READ: Cocaine on a plane at OR Tambo – again: Drug mule nabbed with 33 'bullets' Mauritius' Anti-Drug and Smuggling Unit (ADSU) in collaboration with the officers of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Section of the MRA intercepted the woman coming from Reunion after being alerted of the 'suspicious behaviour' of the woman. The woman, 34-year-old Nokuphila Mtshali, from KwaZulu-Natal, reportedly introduced herself as a businesswoman who would be on the island for five days. The officials searched her and found three plastic-wrapped bundles in her private parts containing 528 grams of heroin. The woman reportedly cooperated with the officials, who arranged a fake delivery with fake drugs in an attempt to find her accomplices, reported Mauritius' The fake delivery led to the arrest of two Nigerian men, Ndubuisi Samuel Ebielonwu, 33, and Eze Collins, 31, and police confiscated an iPhone and cash in rands, Mauritian rupees, US dollar and naira. The woman was reportedly promised R40,000 for a successful delivery. ALSO READ: SA woman arrested for 'drugs in vagina' for two Nigerians in Mauritius A year before, 30-year-old Thami Nomathamsanqa Dyasi was allegedly caught with pellets of heroin weighing more than 1.25kg concealed in her private parts and stomach, according to Mauritian reports. Additional reporting by Vhahangwele Nemakonde
Daily Maverick
14 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Epsteingate and the dirty old men preying on young girls — how language helps them get away with abuse
'It was known generally that those incidents happened on the island, and nothing was done about it,' she said. 'It was shoved under the carpet. What good would it have done for me if I had reported it? I knew nothing would have been done about it, because of previous experience on the island. It was an act that everybody on the island knew was happening, and nobody wanted to talk about it and say it was wrong and deal with it.' (New Zealand Herald, 5 October 2004) At the first reading, the above quote might appear to be related to notorious child abuser and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's secrets from the grave about the doings of powerful old men and their penchant for underage girls. But the 2004 New Zealand publication date reveals it is about another sensational case of child rape by older, powerful men on the tiny Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean. Culture as excuse In 1790, mutineers on the HMS Bounty found themselves on the island among the Polynesian inhabitants. Over the years a community developed, shaped by the control and power of men over women. Blending their own law with some Polynesian cultural beliefs, the men began to justify and normalise rape and domination over women. But the original cultural mores concerned relationships between adolescents, not exploitation by adult men. A 1999 investigation by Gail Cox, a UK police official (the island is a 'British Overseas Territory'), exposed endemic, intergenerational child abuse and rape by the men of the community. Cox interviewed women about sexual abuse involving children as young as five. This led to criminal charges, and in 2004 a British court, sitting on Pitcairn, found six men guilty of sexual offences against underage girls that occurred between 1964 and 1999. The defendants had all argued that the island's culture was influenced by its part-Polynesian roots and that girls had matured earlier and therefore had 'tempted' the men. Predators everywhere Epstein, US President Donald Trump's good friend of more than 15 years, had his private island playboy paradise, Little Saint James in the US Virgin Islands. His jet, known as the Lolita Express by those in the know, transported many of the world's richest and most powerful men to the island, some innocently, but others to have sex with underage girls. This went on for years. These girls were procured by Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's apparent 'girlfriend' and daughter of newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell. When the girls and women first spoke out, they were threatened, silenced, humiliated and marginalised. Prince Andrew eventually settled a case with Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of abusing her at Epstein's New York apartment. Bringing Buckingham Palace into disrepute, Randy Andy was stripped of his stripes and medals. It took a Miami Herald journalist, Julie K Brown, a woman, to give voice to Giuffre (who died by suicide earlier this year), Michelle Licata, Courtney Wild and Jena-Lisa Jones – all survivors of Epstein's abuse. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to one charge of procuring for prostitution a girl below the age of 18 and signed a plea deal. He was arrested again on sex trafficking charges in 2019, but was found dead in his cell soon afterwards. Language is a weapon Men like these believe they can get away with the abuse of children and women because the language we use to describe the crime, even in court matters, feeds into old and dangerous stereotypes. Keith Tuffin and Melanie Simons of Massey University in New Zealand examined the language used in the Pitcairn case and how this contributed to a lack of accountability. 'Language used in sexual assault trial judgments commonly works to reduce the level of responsibility of the perpetrator; for example, describing him as being under the influence of alcohol or portraying sexual assault as erotic, rather than violent,' noted the authors. A 2005 study of judicial sentencing in child abuse cases found similar results. Another study analysed the narratives of a convicted rapist and found 'a discourse of ambiguity about the nonconsensual nature of his crimes', which 'suggested the victim was partly to blame, having not been sufficiently clear in her rejection of sex'. All around us, this instinct to look away when old-men rape plays out. There are millions of women around the world who report cases and are not believed, or are threatened because they have reported the crimes. As US author Sandra Newman has written, in the early 20th century researchers like Havelock Ellis believed that all male sexuality was violent and predatory, and so it was to be expected that they would behave accordingly. This suggests preposterously that men are mere victims of their hormones and atavistic impulses, and external factors are always to blame for amoral behaviour. Personal accountability is seldom taken. How to stop this? Expose the paedophile rings. Jeffrey Epstein might be dead, but his secrets are not. DM This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
