(AGENPARL) – gio 29 agosto 2024 Man sentenced to 17 years for sextortion
A man flagged to Australia by INTERPOL and US Homeland Security Investigations has been jailed for 17 years after sextorting 286 victims – more than half of whom were children – across 20 countries.
Pretending to be a teenage social media star, 29-year-old Muhammad Zain Ul Abideen Rasheed would manipulate young females into providing explicit content.
He would then threaten to send the images to family and friends unless the victims provided increasingly sexual and degrading videos.
Some victims were also forced to perform sexual acts on camera for himself and other unknown individuals, in one instance it was as many as 98 other people. He also swapped sextortion strategies, as well as details of children who were susceptible to blackmail and abuse, with other child sex offenders.
NOTE: More information about INTERPOL’s work to identify and rescue victims of online child sexual abuse is available on our website https://www.interpol.int/Crimes/Crimes-against-children/Our-response-to-crimes-against-children
This includes details of INTERPOL’s International Child Sexual Exploitation database, which holds more than 4.9 million images and videos and has helped identify more than 41,800 victims worldwide – on average the database helps identify around 14 victims each day.
Australian Federal Police Press Release – https://www.afp.gov.au/news-centre/media-release/wa-man-jailed-sextortion-286-victims
Extract below
WA man jailed for sextortion of 286 victims
A Perth man who coerced 286 victims – including 180 children – from 20 different countries into performing sexually explicit acts on camera or video, has been sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment.
The man, 29, who posed as a teenage social media celebrity to prey on the children and young adults online, was sentenced by the Perth District Court today (27 August, 2024), after pleading guilty in December 2023 to 119 charges that covered more than 550 incidents across 11 months.
When determining the sentence, the Judge also took into account another three charges capturing 108 incidences of behaviour.
AFP Assistant Commissioner David McLean said the scale of the predatory and exploitative offending by the offender made it one of the worst sextortion cases in history.
The AFP worked closely with United States’ Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Interpol to investigate initial reports about an Australian man sextorting girls through social media.
During the investigation, AFP officers in WA liaised through the AFP’s International Network with police in multiple countries to identify victims and check on their welfare.
The Western Australia Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team (WA JACET), which comprises AFP and Western Australia Police Force (WAPF), launched an investigation in September 2019 and found the man used multiple social media accounts to target victims.
He would contact young females whose accounts had visible friend lists and try to befriend them, before manipulating them into providing explicit content. He would then blackmail them into providing increasingly sexual and degrading videos by threatening to send earlier explicit content to their family and friends.
One Canada-based victim told police she was just 13 when someone she thought was a 15-year-old social media celebrity contacted her online. Instead, it was the Perth man, who asked her a series of sexually explicit questions before sending edited screen shots of the conversation that depicted the victim liking his sexual fantasies.
The offender then threatened to send these doctored images to her friends and family unless she complied with his demands for sexually explicit videos.
On some occasions, the man forced victims to perform sexual acts on camera for the viewing of himself and other unknown individuals, in one instance it was as many as 98 other people. He also conversed online with other child sex offenders, swapping sextortion strategies, as well as details of children who were susceptible to blackmail and abuse. [….]
The man exploited and abused victims from 20 countries – Australia, The United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Guam, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Namibia, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Panama, South Africa, Spain and Netherlands.
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