Australian who posed as teen star to sexually abuse over 100 children has been sentenced to prison

A 29-year-old Australian who posed as a teenage YouTube star to harass children and young adults online has been sentenced to 17 years in prison.

The Perth man, identified as Muhammad Zain Ul Abideen Rasheed, forced 286 victims, including 180 children, from 20 different countries to perform sexually explicit acts on camera or video, Australian Federal Police said.

Rasheed pleaded guilty to 119 charges in December last year. The first charge against him was brought in 2021 when the Australian Federal Police (AFP) reported that he posed as a teenage social media star to befriend girls in Australia and abroad.

Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner David McLean said the man's “heinous acts” and his complete disregard for the distress, humiliation and fear of his victims made this case “one of the most gruesome sextortion cases ever tried in Australia”.

“This type of exploitation and abuse on the internet is devastating and causes lifelong trauma,” he said.

“Under the guise of a social media star, the perpetrator 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 have felt safe,” he said.

On Tuesday, Western Australia District Court Judge Amanda Burrows said the number of offences was of such magnitude that there was “no comparable case … in Australia”.

The man is alleged to have approached children online by posing as a teenage star with a large following, initially asking innocuous questions to gain their trust. The court heard this then escalated when he asked them for pictures of themselves which he could “rate”.

He then threatened to share screenshots of their responses with friends and family unless they engaged in increasingly extreme sexual acts, sometimes involving pets and younger siblings or children in the home.

The judge said these crimes were of a “degrading, humiliating nature. [and] The behavior was particularly abhorrent in connection with a pet.”

Mr McLean said there had been cooperation between international law enforcement agencies that helped catch the perpetrator.

“Based on information from Interpol and HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) about an Australian man who was sexually exploiting girls in other countries, the AFP was able to identify this man and prevent him from harming other people.

“During the investigation, AFP officers liaised with police in several countries to help identify the victims and check on their welfare, as well as passing on information about other perpetrators who had been in contact with this man.”

Rasheed was convicted of 665 crimes that occurred over an eleven-month period and involved 286 victims.

“The victims will live forever in fear that the recordings you made of them [further] spread,” said Judge Burrows.

He is currently serving a five-year sentence for another crime involving the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old child in his car at a Perth park. The judge noted that these offences occurred during the same time period as his online crimes.

Rasheed moved to Australia from Pakistan at a young age and his parents were “traditional, conservative and strict,” according to the psychiatrists who spoke to him.

He reportedly began accessing child exploitation material online in 2018, which then led to him exploiting children directly in 2019 after the online material “lost its impact.”

If you are a child and need help because something has happened to you, you can call the NSPCC free on 0800 1111. You can also call the NSPCC if you are an adult and are worried about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adults on 0808 801 0331