Warning: This story contains details readers might find distressing
A man has been jailed in one of the worst sex abuse cases in history after he pretended to be a teenage social media celebrity to force more than 250 victims, including 180 children, to perform explicit sex acts on camera.
Muhammad Zain Ul Abieen Rasheed, 29, from Perth, was jailed for 17 years for sextoring 286 victims. He was sentenced by Perth District Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to 119 charges in December last year. The charges stemmed from more than 550 incidents over an 11-month period. The judge took into account three other charges which recorded 108 behavioral incidents when sentencing. Australian Federal Police Commissioner David McLean described the case as one of the worst cases of sextortion in history.
The AFP worked with the US Homeland Security Investigations Agency and Interpol to investigate reports that an Australian man sextorted girls via social media. AFP WA officers have been working with police in several countries to identify victims and check their welfare. The Western Australian Joint Child Exploitation Team (WA JACET) launched an investigation in September 2019 with the AFP and WA Police.
WA JACET discovered that Rasheed used multiple social media accounts to attack victims. Rasheed contacted young women who had visible friend lists on social media and attempted to befriend them before manipulating them into providing him with explicit content. He then blackmailed them into providing him with increasingly sexual and degrading videos, threatening to send their family and friends past explicit content.
A Canadian victim told police she was 13 years old when someone she thought was a 15-year-old social media celebrity contacted her online. But it was Rasheed who asked her sexually suggestive questions before sending her edited screenshots of the conversation in which the victim indulged in a sexual fantasy.
Rasheed then threatened to send the doctored images to his friends and family unless he complied with his demands for sexually explicit videos. At times he forced the victims to perform sexual acts on camera; In one case, the video was viewed by nearly 100 other people. He also spoke to other online child sex offenders, sharing sextortion strategies and details of children vulnerable to blackmail and abuse.
The AFP first charged Rasheed in September 2020, when he was 25, and filed additional charges in 2021. Since September 2019, the AFP and Commonwealth prosecutors have been reviewing chat logs, videos and photos stored on the man’s line. AFP investigators contacted international law enforcement partners to identify the victims and the extent of sexual exploitation and abuse.
Because several young women were attacked at the same time, police had to sift through thousands of disturbing text conversations from social media accounts to identify each crime. AFP Assistant Commissioner McLean said Rasheed’s despicable actions and callous disregard for the obvious distress, humiliation and fear of his victims made him one of the most horrific sextortion cases in Australia.
“This type of online exploitation and abuse is devastating and causes lifelong trauma,” she said. “As a social media celebrity, the predator manipulated and exploited 286 children and young adults for his own sadistic pleasure. “Most of the victims were in their own homes, a place where they should feel safe. “Congestion can escalate in minutes. “We encourage parents and care to regularly talk to their children about their online activities so they can feel free to ask for help if they need it. “We also want to remind people to never share personal information with people they’ve only met online.” Homeland Security Investigations Attaché Ernest Verina said that in addition to HSI’s unwavering mission to protect victims of child exploitation.
“HSI will always support Australia globally to hold accountable those who commit these horrific crimes against our children,” he said. The man exploited and abused victims from 20 countries, including Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Guam, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Namibia, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway , Bread.
