Swatting as sextortion: Armed cops sent to teen's home after refusing to send nude pics
The “swatting” phenomenon, in which teenagers make false reports to send heavily armed police officers to each other’s homes, is on the rise again in the Netherlands. But this time, it has an extra layer. Swatting is now being used in sextortion to pressure victims into sending nude photos, among other things, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) told RTL Nieuws.
This happened to 17-year-old Dana and her mother, Wendy. One night in May, Wendy received a phone call from the police saying that officers were waiting outside her door. “Six officers held us at gunpoint, and two officers searched our house,” Dana told RTL Nieuws. “The police had received a report that I was holding someone at gunpoint in our house.”
Dana immediately suspected that this fake report was related to recent experiences she had online. She had been doxxed. Her address details were shared after she refused to send nude photos.
This happened on Discord and Roblox, chat and gaming platforms, where she became friends with two other users. “Suddenly they wanted me to moan their names,” Dana told the broadcaster. “I didn’t want to, but they kept insisting. They offered Robux for it. One of them wanted me to send nude photos.”
Dana refused and blocked one of her “friends.” In the days that followed, other accounts also started asking her for nude photos. And then her address started being shared. One user asked if she would cut herself for him.
Dana told Wendy what was happening, but they didn’t go to the police. When the six cops showed up at their door in the middle of the night, they showed them the messages, and the police concluded that this was a “swatting.”
Swatting is a phenomenon that spread from the United States. “There, an arrest team is called a SWAT team. Abroad, it is used to shut down businesses and hospitals; we do not see that here,” a spokesperson for the OM told RTL Nieuws.
Swatting rears its head in the Netherlands now and again, but that it is now being used as a form of sextortion is new. “You see this method used by groups we know from sextortion,” the OM spokesperson said. “Via Discord and Roblox, they ask for nude photos. They ask the victims to carve the perpetrator’s name into their bodies with a knife. Swatting is a means of intimidation to ensure that the victims do what the perpetrator wants.”
The police call swatting a “dangerous, illegal, false emergency call, such as a bomb threat or hostage situation, made to send heavily armed police units to the address of an innocent victim.” Making a false report is a punishable offense.
The police do their best to check calls sufficiently before deploying an arrest team or a Special Intervention Service team, a spokesperson told RTL. "Unfortunately, we regularly deal with unjustified calls to the emergency number 112. In 2025, there were 3.5 million calls to 112, of which 1 million were unnecessary,” the spokesperson said. “We monitor signals regarding 112 calls that indicate swatting. A careful assessment is always made of what is appropriate for the situation presenting itself at that moment.”
In Dana’s case, the police sent regular armed officers, not an arrest team or a Special Intervention team.
Her mother, Wendy, told RTL that Dana is still receiving messages. “Dana really had the most terrible things hurled at her, right up to threats of being raped. She didn’t dare eat or sleep.” Her daughter is doing better now, but she is scared to make friends online - something she used to enjoy.
The OM told the broadcaster that they have identified a suspect in Dana’s case, but would not comment on the person’s age or whether they live in the Netherlands or abroad.
