Who is Muhammad Zain Ul Abideen Rasheed Sex predator who targeted underage girls in 20 countries

An Australian court has jailed a predator who posed as a YouTube influencer and blackmailed girls around the world into performing sex acts on camera. Most of his victims were under the age of 16, according to media reports. The Pakistan-born man, 29-year-old Muhammad Zain Ul Abideen Rasheed, was jailed for 17 years by a Perth District Court after pleading guilty to a total of 119 charges. His victims included 286 people from a total of 20 countries, including the US, the UK, France and Japan, in addition to Australia, the reports said.

Rasheed posed as a 15-year-old “YouTube star” with a large following to manipulate his victims into a downward spiral of escalating abuse. He threatened to release their explicit messages and images to their friends and family, the Western Australian Crown Court was told, according to a BBC report.

“There is no comparable case that I can find in Australia,” Judge Amanda Burrows said regarding the scale of the offences, according to an ABC News report.

Australian authorities are calling it “one of the worst cases of sextortion” in history.

“The callous disregard this man had for his victims around the world and their suffering, humiliation and fear makes this one of the most horrific cases of sextortion ever prosecuted in Australia,” the BBC quoted David McLean, Assistant Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, as saying.

Rasheed, who is already serving a five-year prison sentence for sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl, will not be eligible for parole until 2033.

Rasheed’s working method

According to the media reports cited above, Rasheed posed as a 15-year-old internet star in America to strike up a conversation with his targets. He sent them photos of the YouTube star and asked innocent questions at first. Once he gained their trust, Rasheed began discussing sexual fantasies with them.

The court was told he would threaten the girls into performing various sexual acts, otherwise he would send their responses to their acquaintances. The “degrading” acts would be live-streamed and sometimes involved other children in the home or even pets, the BBC reported.

The court heard that on several occasions Rasheed invited other adults and paedophiles – sometimes as many as 98 at a time – to watch the livestream.

The court was also told that Rasheed would set a “countdown clock” while threatening his targets to comply with his demands, according to the ABC. Some victims told authorities they felt suicidal after the online experience, with the BBC reporting that one even sent him images of himself harming him. He would continue to bully the girls despite their “obvious distress” and “extreme fear”.

Who is Muhammad Zain Ul Abideen Rasheed, and how was he caught?

Rasheed was very young when he moved to Australia from Pakistan, according to a psychiatrist’s report filed with the court. The report described his parents as “traditional, conservative and strict.” He attended an all-boys school that had no other Muslim pupils apart from his brothers. This led to him feeling “socially isolated,” the report said, according to the ABC report cited above.

In 2018, Rasheed first gained access to child exploitation material, but it “quickly lost its effect” and in 2019 he began targeting children directly.

Rasheed was first charged in 2021 after Interpol and US police contacted the Australian Federal Police with concerns about an individual believed to be from Australia targeting young girls on social media, according to ABC. He was arrested following a police raid on his Perth home.

Rasheed was separately charged with two counts of sexually abusing a 14-year-old child in his car at a local park, and was already serving a five-year sentence when the 17-year sentence was imposed. The judge noted that the case stemmed from the same time he was committing the crimes with his global targets, ABC reported.

What the court said

While in prison, Rasheed was part of a sex offender treatment program, but the court was told he remained at “a significantly above average risk” of reoffending, according to his assessment by a psychiatrist.

According to the ABC report, he is said to suffer from “hebephilia” and “compulsive sexual sadism”, a condition described as “a persistent sexual interest in pubescent children into early adolescence”.

Before Rasheed was locked up, the court heard, he was involved in online “incel” communities that promote the misogynistic view that women are inferior to men and owe them sex.

“You began to see women and girls as objects of gratification rather than as people…” the psychiatrist’s report cited above said.

When the court sentenced Rasheed for 665 offences committed over an 11-month period, Judge Burrows said: “The victims will always live with the fear that the recordings you made of them will be (further) distributed.”