Imagine if you can that you’re an unfathomably wealthy man living a picture-perfect life: a tight-knit family, cute kids, an impressive job title and enough money to make life as frictionless as it can possibly be. Then, one day, boredom creeps in. Maybe you visit a website for sugar daddies seeking sugar babies, or start an affair with a younger colleague. Perhaps that relationship then turns sour, or never really goes further than the sharing of a compromising selfie.
Next thing you know, you’re being threatened: pay up or your reputation will be in tatters. What does the unfathomably wealthy man do when he’s about to lose everything? “I’ve had cases where they’ve paid tens to hundreds of thousands [to blackmailers],” says Alexandra McCready. She heads the reputation privacy department at London-based law firm Vardags, a team of six people who increasingly find themselves occupied with so-called sextortion cases.
Their increased caseload tracks with the data: between 2023 and 2024, police recorded a record high of 37,959 blackmail offences in England and Wales — almost double the number of cases in 2022 and a tenfold increase since 2008.
What’s driving the surge? Well, when it comes to statistics, it could simply be down to the fact that more blackmail victims are reporting incidents to the police, particularly when those affected are younger and out of the public eye. But there are other factors to consider, too. For one, technology has made blackmailing a significantly easier crime to commit, as people have become more tech-savvy — an educated Google search can instruct pretty much anyone on how to use VPNs, send anonymous emails, or hack and extract data.
Then there’s the cost-of-living crisis, which may also be pushing more financially strained individuals towards crime. “It’s largely post-pandemic that it’s got really bad,” says Lucy Winter, a criminal defence consultant at Vardags, who advises on cases where a client is accused of illegal behaviour.
“In this economic climate, I think people are trying to find more ways to get money.” And who better to exploit than an unsuspecting fat cat lurking on escort sites? Because although the circumstances of each case McCready and Winter work on differ, their clients tend to have one thing in common. “Typically they’re high net worth,” says McCready.
“It’s cliché to say it’s always men who are bankers or something — there’s no particular industry [that’s more susceptible] — but the people we work with tend to have a strong profile in whatever profession they work in, whether they’re a CEO or senior within a business.” In other words, they have a reputation that’s worth damaging. Bonus points if they have a wife and kids, instantly raising the stakes.
“If you’re a good blackmailer, you’ll target people who have families, because they know that if that crumbles it’s a domino effect,” says Winter. “That’s the driving force of panic when people come to us. It’s always the case that the black-mailer is saying: ‘I’m going to tell your wife and kids, and come to your house.’”
It’s also why these wealthy individuals are more likely to recruit a lawyer than go to the police, lest news about their infidelity gets out to the press. Generally, a rich man’s sextortion case will fall into one of three categories: scorned lovers, organised crime and opportunists. The first instance — when a long-term affair ends — is, perhaps, the messiest. “We’ve had situations where our client has financially supported [the blackmailer during their relationship] — you and know, contributing rent, paying for holidays or some clothes.
When it ends, that person has this expectation payment will continue,” explains McCready. “Often, the person that’s blackmailing really doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong, because they’re so upset by the relationship ending suddenly.”
Blackmail: Who's right, who's wrong and is there a grey area?
“No client comes to you and says, ‘I did this, get me off.’ Otherwise you have to tell them you can’trepresent them. If people have committed an offence, they’ll say, ‘I know I shouldn’t have done this.How can you help me with what to do next?’ But most of the time, when we’re dealing with blackmailand sextortion, the victim has done nothing. That’s why they’re able to blackmail them instead ofgoing to the police.”
Instances of organised crime and opportunism, however, are often harder to distinguish between — although McCready and Winter did once encounter a woman who was blackmailing two of their clients independently.
Nine times out of 10, culprits are financially motivated, but if someone’s in a high-profile position they’ve seen other reasons such as wanting an apology. Many victims never meet their blackmailer and are threatened with the release of incriminating texts, images or videos that were shared online. Sometimes they’ll have met once or twice before allegations arise — claims of pregnancy, STIs or, in extreme cases, sexual assault. How, then, do lawyers nav-igate the practical and ethical ramifications of alleged illegal behaviour?
“Obviously, if you have a case of somebody claiming rape, it’s only ever going to be one person’s word against another. So long as my client’s telling me that he didn’t do that, I have to go on that basis,” says Winter. “And actually, in most circumstances, if somebody is [using sexual assault accusations to] blackmail, it is slightly easier to protect your client, because you’re saying: why not just go straight to the police instead of blackmailing him?”
The blackmailer always says: ‘I’m going to tell your wife and kids, and come to your house’
Of course, when sex, money and power intertwine, the path to a moral high ground is rarely free of obstacles. In sextortion cases involving powerful men, the benefit of the doubt could, arguably, do a lot of heavy lifting in their favour.
But Winter and McCready are keen to point out that increased awareness and restrictions around the inappropriate use of settlement agreements and NDAs means it’s now harder for powerful men to squash allegations. “Lawyers are very alive to that,” says McCready. “And from a personal perspective, if there’s a genuine complaint of sexual misconduct with evidence, we can never pressurise someone into shutting that down. There’s very strict guidelines on what lawyers can and can’t do.”
Winter agrees. “No client comes to you and says, ‘I did this, get me off.’ Otherwise you have to tell them you can’t represent them,” she says. “If people have committed an offence, they’ll say, ‘I know I shouldn’t have done this. How can you help me with what to do next?’ But most of the time, when we’re dealing with blackmail and sextortion, the victim has done nothing. That’s why they’re able to blackmail them instead of going to the police and using the criminal compensation fund.”
Still, as McCready puts it, “People do get themselves into a pickle with prostitutes.” Take, for instance, the Tory MP who recently found themselves in a blackmail trap by an alleged KGB agent posing as a sex worker in a London brothel — according to former chief whip Simon Hart’s diaries, at least.
“Suggesting they might be a KGB agent is not something that comes up very often — and it’s likely to have been obviously untrue — but the situation he was in is very common,” says Winter, before revealing another anomaly in the Tory MP story: the “agent’s” £500 ransom. “That’s weirdly low!”
But even if you do find yourself at the mercy of a bargain blackmailer, giving in and handing over a couple of hundred quid won’t necessarily make the problem go away. In fact, it’s more likely to make someone push their luck and come back for more. “I’ve never seen it be just one payment. That’s when they come to us,” says McCready. “That’s probably one of the safest generalisations you can make about all these cases — that they’ve paid something and it’s escalated.” So, how much does it cost to hire top lawyers to magic the problem away? McCready laughs. “Always less than the blackmailer.”
