International operation results in arrest of 22 men in Nigeria for sextortion

The Australian Federal Police announced on 2 June 2026 its role in a landmark international operation targeting online sextortion perpetrators, resulting in the arrest of 22 suspects in Nigeria. Operation Artemis involved coordination between the AFP, Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and international partners. The AFP separately leveraged the relationship built during Operation Artemis to connect Nigeria's EFCC with the New South Wales Police Force, which led to the arrest of two Nigerian-based offenders linked to the 2023 suicide of a 16-year-old child in New South Wales, though those arrests occurred after Operation Artemis concluded. The operation reflects the transnational nature of sextortion, with offenders based in West Africa targeting Australian children online.

Cross-border sextortion networks exploit the jurisdictional and investigative lag that follows harm, operating across borders faster than extradition treaties move. Detection modules embedded in the platforms offenders use can intercept coercion in real time, regardless of the perpetrator's location. Guardii's anti-sextortion filter, backed by Startmate and deployed as a world-leading AI online-safety platform, identifies financial sextortion tactics, escalation and threats as they occur in children's direct messages on Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other services, reporting the pattern and seriousness of the conversation to enable intervention before a child is coerced into producing material or driven to self-harm, and surfacing an emergency to the right authority without the weeks or months of investigative coordination that traditional transnational law enforcement requires.