A court has found a 40-year-old Canadian national guilty of luring minors into illicit sexual activity via social media. Having tracked and trapped numerous victims across Canada and the United States, he now faces a 33-year prison sentence. The man used Facebook and Instagram to lure children.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the agency involved in the investigation, has now revealed how he managed to lure teenagers and kids as young as 6 years old into such cringeworthy acts.
How did Pathmanathan manage to lure children on social media?
The man was identified as Ramanan Pathmanathan, hailing from Toronto, Canada. FBI, in a statement, said he spent years hunting down children to exploit. He ultimately contacted at least 145 young girls and boys over social media.
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Sex with siblings, relatives and dogs
The investigating team revealed that Pathmanathan, posing as a teen from New Jersey, coerced these minors into exposing themselves and engaging in “sex acts with their siblings, other relatives, and even dogs”. He then recorded these activities. Pathmanathan threatened to send revealing images to their family and friends if the children refused his demands.
Shockingly, some victims were as young as six years old.
“Pathmanathan demanded that the minor victims engage in sexually explicit conduct while they participated in video chats with him. He directed them to expose their genitals and to engage in sexual acts with dogs, siblings, and other relatives. In almost all the video chats with his minor victims, Pathmanathan sent the children images of adults engaged in sexual acts to show them how to do what he was requesting,” according to the statement released by the US Justice Department.
“When the minor victims would decline to continue to engage in sexually explicit conduct or blocked Pathmanathan’s social media accounts, he threatened to send images to the children’s friends or family,” the release states.
Pathmanathan to face 33 year jail term
The massive sextortion scheme lasted seven years until his arrest in March of 2021, prosecutors said. In addition to the 396-month prison term, Chief Judge Boasberg ordered Pathmanathan to serve 10 years of supervised release and register as a sex offender. The prison term will run consecutively to the 12-year sentence that Pathmanathan is serving in Canada.
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