Online Blackmail in the UAE: What to Do First

The order matters more than speed. Each step protects the next one: the evidence you keep supports the police report, and the police report comes before anything that could tip off the person behind the threat.

Article 42(1) covers using an information network or information technology equipment to extort or threaten another person to force them to act or to refrain from acting. Article 42(2) raises the penalty where the threat is 'to commit a crime or to commit dishonorable acts', accompanied by an explicit or implicit demand. Other articles apply as the facts unfold, as the table shows.

Article 72 says these penalties do not prejudice any more severe penalty in the Penal Code or any other law. Article 431 of the Penal Code, Federal Decree-Law No. 31 of 2021, separately punishes photographing a person in a private place without consent, and publishing news, photos or comments about the private or family life of individuals, even if they are true.

The law also reaches people abroad. Article 69 applies the Decree-Law to offences committed outside the UAE where, among other cases, the crime harms any of its nationals or residents, or the offender is later found in the UAE and has not been extradited. Report the threat even if the person is in another country.

In Dubai, the Reporting E-Crime service runs on the Dubai Police app, the Dubai Police website and Smart Police Stations, which are open around the clock. The service is listed as free, and its contacts are the call centre on 901 and mail@dubaipolice.gov.ae. In Abu Dhabi, the Aman service takes cases at aman.adpolice.gov.ae, and the Abu Dhabi Police homepage shows the numbers 8002626 and 2828 for it. The federal Ministry of Interior platform, in the MOI UAE app or at moi.gov.ae, refers reports to the Public Prosecution.

Have your evidence ready to show or upload: the messages, the usernames and profile links, the payment details demanded and your own timeline. The full table of channels, with who each one serves and how to reach it, is in our guide on how to report cyber crime in the UAE.

Use the official channels only. Be wary of any account, page or agent that offers to file a police report for you, to trace the person, or to recover money for a fee.

Do not copy, forward or save the images to show anyone, even to prove what happened. Tell the police where they are and let the police collect them. If you are a parent, keep the device as it is and do not contact the person yourself.

The platforms carry their own duties. The Federal Decree-Law on Child Digital Safety, No. 26 of 2025, in force since 1 January 2026, requires platforms to report child sexual abuse material and harmful content to the authorities immediately, and to carry out orders from the concerned authorities to remove or report it.

Google's Search removal policies also list content related to individuals under 18. Those routes sit with the police and the platforms. A child's case is not one for a private agency.

Google's Search removal policies include personal sexual content, and personally identifiable information and doxxing content. Google also says that removing something from Google Search does not remove it from the internet: removing it from the site means contacting the site owner. A block ordered in the UAE disables access in the UAE only, so a copy on a foreign site can stay online elsewhere until the site takes it down.

This is RepuLex's role, after or alongside the police report and never instead of it. We find the copies, capture each one in a dated, hashed record that the police or a UAE lawyer can use, report each copy to its platform under the platform's own policy and to Google under its removal policies, and monitor for the same material appearing again. A platform or Google decides each report; nothing here is a promise of removal. Our page on online reputation management in the UAE explains how we work alongside the UAE lawyer you instruct.

If the person also set up a profile in your name, that is a separate offence under Article 11, and the platforms take impersonation reports of their own. See our guide on a fake account in your name.

Some cases begin with a hacked account rather than a conversation, and the threat is to publish private chats or photos taken from it. Others use a doctored image that the person threatens to circulate as if it were real; Article 44 of the Cybercrime Decree-Law covers modifying a photo or scene with the intention of defaming or insulting a person.

A short deadline is part of the pressure, and it does not change what you should do. Whatever the form, the steps are the same: police first, no payment, no reply, and keep the evidence.