Sept 5 (Reuters) - New Mexico said on Thursday it filed

a lawsuit against Snapchat owner Snap Inc ( SNAP ), alleging

that the messaging app's policies and design features facilitate

the sharing of child sexual exploitation material.

The lawsuit brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raul

Torrez said a months-long investigation found that Snapchat was

a primary platform for sextortion, in which a predator coerces a

minor into sending explicit photos or videos and threatens to

distribute the content unless more sexual content or money is

paid.

Snap did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Snapchat, which is wildly popular with teens and young

users, is known for messages that disappear in 24 hours.

"Snap has misled users into believing that photos and videos

sent on their platform will disappear, but predators can

permanently capture this content and they have created a virtual

yearbook of child sexual images that are traded, sold, and

stored indefinitely," Torrez said in a statement.

As part of its investigation, the state's Department of

Justice opened a decoy Snapchat account for a 14-year-old named

Heather, which exchanged messages with an account called

"child.rape" and others with explicit names.

Investigators also found 10,000 records related to Snap and

child sexual abuse content on dark websites, saying that

Snapchat was "by far the largest source of images and videos

among the dark web sites investigated."

New Mexico previously sued Meta Platforms ( META ) in

December on similar allegations of failing to protect children

from sexual abuse and predation.