THE men who visited 26-year-old Amanda's online dating profile this week might having been looking for love - but that isn't what they found.

For 'Amanda' was in fact a character created to spearhead an "edgy" new police campaign.

Officers with Dorset Police created the profile on Tinder and Bumble to raise awareness of sextortion. In just 24 hours, 'Amanda's' profile was visited by almost 150 men aged 18 to 34 in the Dorset area.

Instead of the selfies visitors to the profile might have expected, both accounts featured four bold emoji-based slides and a biography warning of the risks of sextortion.

The practice is a form of blackmail in which sexual information or images are used to extort the victim. In total, 85 cases were reported in Dorset in 2017.

Bumble took just minutes to remove the profile for breach of use, and Tinder less than a day to do the same.

Jake Moore, Dorset Police's cyber crime prevention officer, said part of the challenge in modern day policing is to find new ways to effectively communicate with the people the force serves.

He said: “We understand it’s an edgy campaign but it needed to be to hit our target audience.

"It’s an absolute credit to Bumble and Tinder they noticed and removed our fake profile so quickly.

"We hope they would be equally as vigilant in identifying people responsible for sextortion or other scams.”

There have been increasing reports of sextortion in recent years. Fraudsters launch a fake dating profile and make friends with a target's contacts on social media for the purposes of extorting money by threatening to send intimate footage to the victim's family, colleague and friends.

On some occasions, the footage has been edited to suggest the victim has been engaged in illegal activity.

Dorset's police and crime commissioner Martyn Underhill said: “This campaign is a fantastic example of forward-thinking policing.

"In an online age, people are at risk of being exploited in new ways and it is vital that policing is innovative in its response in order to keep people safe."