Jade Thirlwall's boyfriend Jordan Stephens in 'scary' sextortion scam as blackmailers demand cash

Rizzle Kicks singer Jordan Stephens has been blackmailed by scammers over nude photos. The hip hop star, who is dating Jade Thirlwall, was targeted after he set up an elaborate sting to expose the criminals pushing British teens to suicide. In Britain, sextortion is destroying young men’s lives and has been directly linked to the suicide of four teenagers. The crime sees scammers strike up an online relationship with their target before asking them to send nude photos. Once the scammer has the nude pics, the blackmail begins.

“In 2023, there were an average of 22 reports of sextortion a day,” says Jordan, 33. “Sextortion is now the most common form of internet image abuse in Britain.” Sextortion scammers rely on their victims paying up to avoid the shame of their private photographs being circulated to their friends and families. Most victims of sextortion are young men and many are underage. “This crime overwhelmingly targets young men. In fact, over 90% of reported victims are male,” says Jordan.

A staggering 65% of teenagers and young adults have been targeted in online sextortion. When Jordan takes to Britain’s streets to ask young people if they’ve encountered sex scammers, he finds that many have. It’s estimated there are hundreds of thousands of victims out there, but many don’t report it, says Jordan.

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In his documentary, UNTOLD: Hunting My Sextortion Scammer, Jordan meets one young victim who was blackmailed until he was physically ill and suicidal. Speaking anonymously, he says, “It started when I was 16. I remember meeting somebody on a dating app. I was quite lonely then all of a sudden someone was showing me lots of interest, it was exciting. I felt seen and I felt understood, but it quickly turned into something more sinister.”

After sending pictures of his body things took a nasty turn. He says, “They bothered me all day, every day. I remember being asked for money. I showed screenshots of my bank accounts to prove I had nothing. I remember white hot panic that these pictures of me would be seen by my family and friends. It made me start being physically sick.”

Although sextortion is illegal in the UK under blackmail laws, many scammers are thousands of miles away in places like the Ivory Coast, the Philippines and Nigeria, but Jordan was only able to find seven reports of prosecutions for sextortion-related offences in the UK. Meanwhile, 51 teenage suicides globally have been linked to sextortion.

“I don’t like that young people are being taken advantage of,” says Jordan. “You have hundreds of thousands of young guys sharing explicit images underage, and we have no idea where those images are on the internet.”

Jordan is spurred on when he meets the family of Murray Dowey, 16, who took his own life in 2023 after being blackmailed by a sextortion scammer. Evan Dowey was 13 when his brother, Murray, died. “He was a really good brother, he really looked out for me,” says Evan. “Somebody started messaging him, posing as a girl his age, about 16. She asked him to send her an intimate photo. It turned out they were scammers and asking for money or they were going to send the photos to all his friends on his follow list. Murray decided to take his own life.”

Now Murray’s family want to ensure this never happens to another family. Evan continues, “I just don’t want anybody else to have to go through what I’ve had to go through.” To try to snare a scammer, Jordan creates a fake profile and fake gift cards (the preferred payment for scammers), which help him pinpoint their locations. He says, “We’re going to play the criminals at their own game.”

But when one bites, he’s shocked by the aggression of the scammer who phones him through Instagram and shouts, “I swear I will destroy your life.” Watch the documentary to find out what Jordan discovers about those behind the sextortions.

UNTOLD: Hunting My Sextortion Scammer streams from Wednesday 16 July on Channel 4