Muhammad Luqman Rana, Child Pornography and Extortion, Maryland 2022

A 33-year-old Canadian man has been sentenced to 32 years in prison for producing images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children and for interstate extortion based on an online ‘sextortion’ scheme.

Muhammad Luqman Rana, of Vaughan, Ontario, used the online messaging chat sites Omegle and Tinychat to target both adult and minor victims living in the United States and Canada to produce sexually explicit images.

According to court documents, from approximately 2014 to 2016, Rana tricked five minor U.S. victims, who ranged from ages 12 to 17, into producing sexually explicit images by posing as a minor male.

Rana surreptitiously captured two of the minor victims changing in their bedrooms after they had accidentally left their webcam on after chatting with him.

Once Rana had embarrassing and sensitive videos of his victims, he forced them to produce and send additional sexually explicit images and videos via both live transmission and to his email account out of fear that he would publicly post the videos he had previously obtained if they did not comply with his demands.

Rana was arrested in Canada on a provisional arrest warrant in January 2021 and was extradited to the United States on January 25, 2022.

The FBI and the Toronto Police Services investigated the case, with the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs conducting the requests for mutual legal assistance and extradition.

Sentencing in the case was announced by Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron for the District of Maryland, Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, Special Agent in Charge Thomas J. Sobocinski of the FBI Baltimore Field Office, and Chief Myron Demkiw of the Toronto Police Services.

The case was prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Jennifer Toritto Leonardo of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney G. Michael Morgan Jr. for the District of Maryland.

Related Federal Cases