So, you're a victim of sextortion?

Meet the women wealthy men turn to in a crisis

- STORY BY OLIVE POMETSEY

Imagine, if you can, that you're an unfathomably wealthy man living a picture-perfect life: a tight-knit family, cute kids, an impressive job title and enough money to make life as frictionless as it can possibly be.

Then, one day, boredom creeps in. Maybe you visit a website for sugar daddies seeking sugar babies, or start an affair with a younger colleague. Perhaps that relationship then turns sour, or never really goes further than the sharing of a compromising selfie. Next thing you know, you're being threatened: pay up or your reputation will be in tatters. What does the unfathomably wealthy man do when he's about to lose everything?

"I've had cases where they've paid tens to hundreds of thousands [to blackmailers]," says Alexandra McCready. She heads the reputation and privacy department at London-based law firm Vardags, a team of six people who increasingly find themselves occupied with so-called sextortion cases. Their increased caseload tracks with the data: between 2023 and 2024, police recorded a record high of 37,959 blackmail offences in England and Wales - almost double the number of cases in 2022 and a tenfold increase since 2008.

What's driving the surge? Well, when it comes to statistics, it could simply be down to the fact that more blackmail victims are reporting incidents to the police, particularly when those affected are younger and out of the public eye. But there are other factors to consider, too. For one, technology has made blackmailing a significantly easier crime to commit, as people have become more tech-savvy - an educated Google search can instruct pretty much anyone on how to use VPNs, send anonymous emails, or hack and extract data. Then there's the cost-of-living crisis, which may also be pushing more financially strained individuals towards crime.