Citing an "explosion" of online sextortion cases involving children, federal authorities Monday issued an unusual national public safety alert in an attempt to intervene in increasingly aggressive schemes linked to more than a dozen suicides in the past year. At least 3,000 victims, primarily boys, have been identified as targets in operations largely originating outside the U.S., in which children are being coerced into sending explicit images online and then extorted for money. "Victims may feel like there is no way out," FBI Director Christopher Wray said. "It is up to all of us to reassure them that they are not in trouble, there is hope, and they are not alone.” Federal officials, describing "desperate" accounts from young victims, said the number of incidents in the first six months of 2022 represented a 1,000% increase from the same period last year. Read more about what the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children are doing to combat the surge of incidents, which Wray described as "a horrific increase," at our link in bio.