Australia sentences 29-year-old in worst sexual extortion case in history
An Australian court sentenced a 29-year-old man to 17 years in prison for coercing 286 victims from several countries, including 180 children, into performing sexually explicit acts on camera or video.
Australian Police Assistant Commissioner David McLean described it in a Tuesday press release as one of the worst sexual extortion cases in history.
Pretending to be a 15-year-old American internet star, Muhammad Zain Ul Abideen Rasheed would strike up conversations with his targets before involving them in discussions about sexual fantasies.
He pleaded guilty in December to 119 charges covering 550 incidents over 11 months.
Investigations revealed that he used multiple social media accounts to befriend young women and girls online, manipulating them into providing explicit content. He then blackmailed them into producing increasingly sexual videos, threatening to send earlier content to their family and friends. On some occasions, he forced victims to perform sexual acts on camera while other people viewed them.
A Canada-based victim told police she was 13 when she was contacted online by someone she believed to be a 15-year-old social media celebrity. He asked her a series of sexually explicit questions before sending edited screenshots of the conversation that falsely depicted her as endorsing his fantasies. The man then threatened to send these doctored images to her friends and family unless she sent him sexually explicit videos.
“This type of online exploitation and abuse is devastating and causes lifelong trauma,” McLean said.
“The predator, through his façade of being a social media celebrity, manipulated and exploited 286 children and young adults for his own sadistic pleasure. Most of these victims were in their own homes, a place where they should feel safe,” he added.
Rasheed exploited and abused victims from 20 countries, including Australia, the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, France, Guam, Israel, Japan, Namibia, New Zealand, Panama, and South Africa. He is already serving a five-year prison term for abusing a 14-year-old girl twice in a car at a park in Perth.
The court heard that he was engaged in a treatment program but still represented a high risk of reoffending. He will be eligible to apply for parole in August 2033.
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