NCMEC Logged 3,000 Sadistic Child Exploitation Reports in 2025, Up 125%
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jul 20
NCMEC Logged 3,000 Sadistic Child Exploitation Reports in 2025, Up 125%
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jul 20
Summary
More than 3,000 reports of sadistic online child exploitation reached NCMEC worldwide in 2025, marking a 125% jump from a year earlier and signaling a sharp rise in cases where children are coerced into producing abuse material.
Social media, gaming platforms and messaging apps are central to the abuse: predators groom vulnerable teens on services such as Roblox and Minecraft, then move them to Telegram, where experts say reporting to NCMEC is limited.
Victims are often children who have disclosed mental health struggles, self-harm or suicidal thoughts online, and offenders use explicit images as leverage to force further abuse, self-injury, harm to others or, in extreme cases, suicide attempts.
Law enforcement has tied the activity to organized violent online networks including 764; the FBI warned in February of a sharp increase, and recent US cases in Maryland, Pennsylvania and South Carolina show the abuse can escalate into offline violence.
Experts say the 3,000 reports capture only a fraction of incidents because many coerced harms fall outside CSAM reporting channels, while offenders often run hundreds of backup accounts and some juvenile perpetrators may continue offending into adulthood.