In Australia, Mohammed Zain-ul-Abidin Rasheed, a 29-year-old man who posed as a famous teenage YouTuber and blackmailed hundreds of girls around the world into performing sex acts on camera, was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Rashid pleaded guilty to 119 charges relating to 286 people from 20 countries, including the UK, the US, Japan and France – two-thirds of the victims were under the age of 16.
A Perth court heard the 29-year-old threatened to send explicit messages and images to their loved ones, forcing them into an increasingly extreme cycle of abuse, the ABC reported.
Australian authorities say it is one of the worst cases of sex extortion in their history.
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“The callous disregard this man showed for his victims around the world, and the distress, humiliation and terror he caused them, makes this one of the most horrific cases of sex blackmail prosecuted in Australia,” Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner David McLean said.
“This type of online exploitation and abuse is devastating and causes lifelong trauma.”
Sentencing him on Tuesday, Judge Amanda Burrows said Rasheed’s offending was so serious that there was “no comparable case” in the country, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Rasheed posed as a 15-year-old American internet star and initiated conversations with his targets, engaging them in discussions about sexual fantasies.
He threatened to send responses to friends and family unless they performed an escalating series of “humiliating” sexual acts, sometimes including the family’s pets and other children.
The court heard that Rashid had joined misogynistic “incel” communities online and on several occasions invited others, in one case as many as 98 people, to live-stream his harrowing acts.
Many of the children he blackmailed said they had suicidal thoughts and some even sent images of themselves harming themselves, but the judge said Rasheed continued to blackmail them despite their “obvious distress” and “extreme fear”, according to ABC.
He was arrested after Interpol and US investigators contacted Australian authorities and charged after police searched his home in 2020.
Rasheed is already serving a five-year sentence for twice sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl in a car at a Perth park.
The court heard that Rasheed had taken part in a sex offender treatment programme but still poses a high risk of reoffending. He is eligible to apply for parole in August 2033.