Nudes and data of 190 of Dutch woman for sale as "sextortion packages" on dark web
The nude photos and private data of at least 190 Dutch women and 28 Belgian women are being sold on the dark web, RTL Nieuws and VTM Nieuws discovered. These “sextortion packages” include photos, social media profiles, and contact details - everything a criminal needs to blackmail the women.
According to the Dutch and Flemish broadcasters, the dark web platform offers sextortion packages featuring over 10,000 women worldwide. The site hosts over 850,000 images of victims, some dating back more than a decade. Each victim has a dedicated profile page showing her name, address, date of birth, phone number, email address, and social media profiles.
These blackmail packages sell for as little as €1 per victim and can be sold to multiple buyers. Users can view a list of victims’ names by country, along with the number of images available for each. Payment grants access to all photos and data, plus instructions on how to blackmail victims.
The site, which has been on the dark web since 2023, also offers the option to have oneself removed from the platform for €250. It is unknown whether this actually happens, according to the broadcasters.
RTL Nieuws spoke to a Dutch woman who is on the platform. “I had panic attacks when I heard I was on the site,” 31-year-old Meddy Goosens from Limburg told the broadcaster. “Every time my leaked photos surface somewhere, it’s incredibly painful.”
Meddy took the photos for her boyfriend when she was a teenager. They surfaced on the internet a few years later. “Every so often, my photos pop up somewhere again.” She then receives a flood of messages from strange men on social media, or her employer informs her that the photos are circulating in the workplace. Every time, it’s like her world falls apart, she said.
Offlimits, an organization that fights against online sex abuse and offers support to victims, told the broadcaster that the majority of reports it receives are about sextortion. “We are talking about thousands of victims every year,” spokesperson Babbette Keuning said.
Keuning called this platform a new low. “We have never seen anything like this. The fact that this website is online is unacceptable. It could have extreme consequences for the victims,” she said. “It comes as a huge shock and stokes fear. People feel unsafe and sometimes become afraid to go to school or even leave the house. They often feel isolated, too. We frequently see cases where the victim contemplates suicide.”
The Antwerp police are investigating the website, but the anonymity offered by the dark web makes it extremely complicated to take down illegal websites and platforms.