FTC sues Digital Forensics Corp over $60M sextortion-help fraud
The FTC sued Dmitry Belkin and 12 businesses including Digital Forensics Corp, alleging they took $60M from sextortion victims for investigations they never performed and faked chat transcripts.
The FTC sued Dmitry Belkin and 12 affiliated businesses — among them Digital Forensics Corp (DFC), 1st All Data Recovery, and Remote Backup Corp, operating sites including BlackmailHelpline.com and DigitalForensics.com — alleging they took at least $60 million from sextortion victims for "investigation" services they never actually delivered. The complaint was filed in federal court in Ohio; a court has temporarily barred the firm from doing business while the case proceeds. Reporting from The Record and CyberScoop; the complaint is public.
What the FTC alleges
DFC marketed two paid "phases." Phase 1, priced between $1,499 and $20,000, was supposed to stop the attack, locate the extortionist, produce an investigative report, notify law enforcement, and send a cease-and-desist letter. Phase 2, sold for thousands more, promised ongoing account and web monitoring. The FTC says the defendants performed essentially none of it, and instead:
- Fabricated chat transcripts and reused pre-saved geolocation coordinates — typically pointing to Nigeria or the Philippines — to convince victims the extortionist had been "found."
- Discouraged victims from blocking the extortionist, telling them it was "the last thing you want to do" — the opposite of FBI guidance to block and report.
- Pressured every customer into Phase 2, despite claiming it was offered only in rare cases.
- Denied refunds routinely, and allegedly withheld partial refunds unless customers removed negative reviews.
- Gamed its reputation — posting fake positive reviews, paying drivers to post fabricated testimonials with staged photos, and funneling complaints to a fake Better Business Bureau site Belkin controlled.
The FTC alleges violations of the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule, with conduct dating to at least 2020, and says it has received hundreds of complaints. A March 2025 USA Today investigation reported similar findings, including installment financing at interest rates up to 18%.
Why practitioners should care
Sextortion is a live threat your users and their families get hit by, and "we'll find the hacker for you" firms advertise aggressively on search and social the moment someone panics. If your organization runs awareness training or a help desk that fields these reports, the operational guidance is unchanged and it is free:
- Do not pay the extortionist, and do not pay a third party promising to "stop" or "trace" them — no legitimate service can unsend data or reliably unmask an anonymous account.
- Preserve evidence (screenshots, usernames, profile URLs, payment demands) before anything else.
- Block and stop responding. Engagement escalates demands; the FBI's standing advice is to cut contact.
- Report to the FBI at ic3.gov (and local police). For minors, report to the NCMEC CyberTipline.
- Route panicked users to vetted resources, not to the first "helpline" ad they click.
Context
This is fraud riding on a real cyber threat — a pattern that recurs wherever fear outpaces knowledge, from fake antivirus to fake "account recovery" services. The enforcement angle matters because the harm compounds: victims are extorted twice, once by the original actor and again by the firm claiming to rescue them. The temporary shutdown order is a win, but the ad inventory that fed DFC customers is still there for the next operator.