Canadian Man Sentenced to 32 Years in Federal Prison for Production of Child Pornography and Extortion Related to His “Sextortion” of Five Minor Victims

Greenbelt, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis today sentenced Muhammad Luqman Rana, age 33, of City of Vaughan, Ontario, to 32 years in federal prison, followed by lifetime supervised release, for producing image and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children and for extortion related to an online “sextortion” scheme.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek L. Barron; Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division; Special Agent in Charge Thomas J. Sobocinski of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baltimore Field Office; and Chief Myron Demkiw of the Toronto Police Services (Canada).

According to his guilty plea and other court documents, from June 2014 to June 2016, Rana used a free online chat website to target adult and minor victims living in the United States and Canada to produce sexually explicit images.  Rana tricked five minor U.S. victims, who ranged from ages 12 to 17, into producing sexually explicit images because they believed they were chatting with a young 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’s victims were terrorized by him almost daily for months, and some for over a year. 

The Canadian York Regional Police executed a search warrant on Rana’s residence and seized digital evidence which was made available to U.S. law enforcement and Canada agreed to extradite Rana to the United States.  In January 2021, Rana was arrested in Canada on a provisional arrest warrant

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by the United States Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.  For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/psc and click on the "Resources" tab on the left of the page.         

United States Attorney Erek L. Barron and Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. commended the FBI and the Toronto Police Services for their work in the investigation and recognized the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs conducted the requests for mutual legal assistance and extradition.  Mr. Barron and Mr. Polite thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney G. Michael Morgan, Jr. and Senior Trial Attorney Jennifer Leonardo of the Justice Department’s Criminal Child Exploitation and Obscenity Unit, who prosecuted the federal case.

For more information on the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office, its priorities, and resources available to help the community, please visit www.justice.gov/usao-md/project-safe-childhood and https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/community-outreach.

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