Online Enticement Reports Are In. Brace Yourself.

Michael Lemon

4d • General discussion

The Numbers That Made Me Put Down My Coffee

I've been doing this work for over 16 years now.

I've seen a lot of ugly numbers.

But the ones that just came out from the National Center for Missing and Exp*oited Children stopped me in my tracks.

NCMEC just released their 2025 data, and here's the number that hit me...

1.4 million reports of online enticement.

In one year.

Let me say that differently so it really sinks in.

In 2021, there were 44,000 reports.

In 2022, it jumped to 80,000.

In 2023, it hit 186,000.

In 2024, it blew past 546,000.

And in 2025?

1.4 million.

That's a 156% increase in just one year.

And a more than 3,000% increase in four years.

This was so alarming that NCMEC actually did something they've never done before — they released emergency mid-year data in 2025 because they couldn't wait until the end of the year to warn us.

That's how fast this is moving.

And here's the part that should make every parent sit up straight...

In just the first six months of 2025, NCMEC received 518,000 reports of online enticement.

Of those, 440,000 were connected to AI-generated exp*oitation.

That means roughly 85% of enticement reports in the first half of 2025 had an AI connection.

And that 440,000 number?

It was up from just 6,800 in the same period the year before.

That's a 6,300% increase.

Pr*dators are now using artificial intelligence to create fake exp*icit images of kids using nothing but a school photo or a picture from their social media.

They don't even need to trick your child into sending a photo anymore.

They just take one.

What This Looks Like in a Real Family's Living Room

These aren't just numbers on a screen.

Each one of those 1.4 million reports is somebody's kid.

Here's what gets me about this...

A mom called NCMEC to report that her daughter had been targeted by a violent online group on a messaging platform.

These pr*dators befriended her daughter first.

Built trust.

Made her feel special.

Then they made her cut the group's screen name into her own arm with a razor blade.

And when she did it, they told her she was a good girl and that they loved her.

You know what her daughter said back?

"I love you too."

That's the kind of control we're talking about.

And then there's the boys.

Financial s*xtortion is tearing through teenage boys like wildfire right now.

A pr*dator poses as an attractive girl online, gets the boy to share one photo, and within minutes — not days, not weeks, minutes — they're demanding money.

Since 2021, NCMEC is aware of at least 36 teenage boys who took their own lives after being targeted.

A 15-year-old named Bradyn in Wisconsin was gone within minutes of the threats starting.

A boy named Eli in Kentucky was ext*rted using completely AI-generated images — fake photos that never even existed — and he attempted to take his life within an hour.

His stepdad said something that still sits with me: "The enemy has upgraded. They don't need your kid's photo. They can do it on their own."

A 13-year-old named Levi had been on Instagram for less than 48 hours when he was targeted and died.

Forty-eight hours.

These aren't kids who were being reckless online.

These were normal kids doing normal things.

And the speed of this crime is what makes it so terrifying for parents...

Some of these situations go from first contact to crisis in less than 30 minutes.

This Isn't Just One Bad Story. It's a Pattern.

And here's the thing — this isn't just a one-time deal.

This is happening everywhere, all at once.

In January of this year, a Canadian man pled guilty in federal court to s*xually exp*oiting over 100 children in the U.S. by creating a fake online persona and targeting kids on social media.

He'd been doing it for years from another country.

In February, an Orlando man was convicted in a s*xtortion scheme involving more than 50 child victims.

The FBI's s*xtortion page reads like a police blotter that never stops updating — new arrests and convictions almost every single week in 2026.

And it's not just here in the States.

The UK reported a 34% increase in s*xtortion cases involving minors in 2025, with boys between 14 and 17 making up 98% of the victims.

And while all of this is happening, the tech companies aren't even giving law enforcement what they need to fight back.

Beyond the 1.4 million enticement reports, NCMEC's CyberTipline received 21.3 million total reports of child s*xual exp*oitation in 2025 — covering everything from ab*se images to tr*fficking to gr**ming.

Senator Grassley just opened a congressional inquiry into eight major tech companies — including Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, and Roblox — for failing to submit quality reports across all of those categories.

These companies submitted millions of reports that contained zero useful information for investigators.

On Snapchat alone, more than 80% of their reports with law enforcement feedback were deemed completely useless.

So let that sink in...

Kids are being exp*oited at record numbers.

And the platforms they're being exp*oited on can't even be bothered to give police enough information to go after the people doing it.

STAY VIGILANT PARENTS,

Det. Mike

2 comments