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Casablanca, Morocco — A British study found that 30% of all the world’s cases of sextortion come from Morocco, namely the city of Oued Zem, which was named the “capital of sextortion.”
Sextortion is defined as a form of sexual exploitation wherein its perpetrators, usually through non-physical forms of coercion such as the Internet, extort money from their victims by threatening to share their intimate photos and videos if they don’t pay up.
In its October 29-30 weekend edition, Moroccan publication Al Massae stated that since 2012, an international support group for Internet victims had more than 14,000 people claim to be a victim of this type of extortion. Wayne May, director of the support group, claimed that these extortionists make between $500 and $700 a day.
According to Moroccan publication Le360, hundreds of sextortionists are thought to be living and operating out of Oued Zem, known for harboring more than fifty money transfer agencies, which could encourage extortionists to live there.
Al Massae reported that Oued Zem used to survive primarily on money transfers from Moroccans residing abroad, but that since the 2008 financial crisis, younger residents of Oued Zem turned to sextortion as a way to make money.
