North Dakota BCI: Online grooming, sextortion and AI imagery are driving record cyber tips; digital forensics are costly

BISMARCK — Stephen Harstad, chief agent with the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, told a legislative study committee that most crimes targeting children now begin online and that the state is seeing record levels of cyber tips, with roughly 2,500 expected in 2025.

Harstad said the BCI’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) or cybercrime unit — now staffed in the state’s four largest cities with new coverage recently added for Grand Forks — is “the front end” for these investigations. He described three common patterns: traditional grooming aimed at meeting a child in person, sextortion in which victims are coerced with threats or fraud, and coercion to obtain images. “Sextortion is a real problem that we’re seeing,” Harstad said, warning that victims often face extreme embarrassment and suicide risk.

The BCI chief stressed the…