A man who posed as a teenage YouTube star to extort and sexually abuse 286 girls around the world has been described by authorities as one of Australia’s most prolific online child sexual predators as he awaits his fate.
Muhammad Zain Ul Abideen Rasheed, 29, is already behind bars, having previously been jailed for luring a 14-year-old girl into a car park and sexually assaulting her in 2019.
Perth District Court prosecutors on Thursday revealed disturbing details of other crimes in the months before and after that assault, in which the petroleum engineer searched the internet for underage victims and pretended to befriend them before extorting them for sexual images.
The former private school student racked up so many victims that his sentencing hearing will last two days to catalogue the crimes. Western Australia reported.
The victims came from across Australia and 20 countries around the world, including the United States, Canada and New Zealand.
Rasheed posed as a YouTube personality to befriend girls online and used a questionnaire to extort them into sending him sexually explicit material.
The questionnaire Rasheed sent out was based on 20 questions and asked his victims: “What is your darkest secret?”
Once this was completed, Rasheed would send the girl a sexual fantasy written in two parts, asking them if they would like it and the only answers were “Yes or no.”
Muhammad Zain Ul Abideen Rasheed, 25, faces sentencing for blackmailing hundreds of underage victims with sexually explicit material
If the answer was “yes,” Rasheed would ask for intimate photographs of the girl in underwear or naked.
If she refused, he threatened to send her fantasy response to his Instagram follower base.
If photos were sent to him, he also threatened to publish them unless the victim continued to comply with his demands.
“The offender had always pretended to be an international YouTube star, a 15-year-old boy. This YouTube star was known to have a large following among teenage girls,” prosecutor Andrew Sprague told the court.
‘The offender created 17 Instagram and Snapchat accounts… for various purposes to commit crimes against children and young adult victims online.’
Rasheed’s computer equipment was seized by authorities in 2019 when they raided his Perth home following a tip-off from US authorities and Interpol.
Prosecutors told the court that Rasheed would insist on having live chats on Instagram, but would record them.
This also involved group chats with other men, leading to the arrest of another participant in California.
The court heard horrific details of girls begging Rasheed to leave them alone only for him to post a countdown of minutes for them to comply or publish their intimate details.
Some girls threatened to harm themselves, but Rasheed continued to blackmail them.
In a very disturbing case, a An 11-year-old Canadian girl was ordered to rape herself and then involve her pet and brother while Rasheed and other men watched and commented.
Australian authorities were alerted by US Homeland Security investigators and Interpol about Rasheed’s activities in 2019.
After subsequently raiding his Perth home, investigators initially identified 112 alleged victims of Rasheed, before further examination of his electronic devices allegedly revealed hundreds more victims.
Rasheed remained silent in the dock, showing no emotion as his heinous crimes were laid bare in court on Thursday.
His lawyer told the court he could request another report be compiled on the 29-year-old before sentencing.