A very similar thing happened to a friend's teenage son a few years ago; he was catfished by what he believed to be a very pretty girl his age on one of those video chat sites popular with teens (never visited one - sounds like my personal hell - but my understanding is that it randomly FaceTime connects you with a person to talk to). The talk heated up at some point and she asked him to move it to another platform and do some spicy type things, he complied and said she was real and doing spicy things, also.
Shortly thereafter, he received a message with names of his friends and relatives, and was asked what they'd think about what he just did. They told him he was about to find out if he didn't pay $500 via Western Union; they'd secretly recorded it all and said if he didn't pay, they'd upload it to his SM accounts. At that point, he was panicking and came clean to his mom and she had him disable all accounts and called the police.
Scammers and predators are smart and technology does seem to be their new playground. Law enforcement has to get smarter every day just to keep up with them and
in some cybercrime cases, have even enlisted the criminals to leave the dark side and help teach law enforcement the tricks and tips they used to commit crimes, so law enforcement can improve. I think this is a brilliant move for certain crimes. I just hope there's a digital trail in this case.