A Canadian man has been sentenced to 33 years in prison in the United States for targeting more than 145 children in a long-running online sextortion scheme. Some of the victims were as young as six years old.
Ramanan Pathmanathan, 40, pleaded guilty on January 30, 2026, to coercion and enticement of a minor and production of child sexual abuse material. Along with the prison sentence, he must register as a sex offender and will be under supervised release for 10 years after completing his sentence. He is also already serving a 12-year prison term in Canada for similar crimes.
According to U.S. authorities, Pathmanathan used multiple Instagram and Facebook Messenger accounts to contact young victims between March 2014 and March 2021. He allegedly impersonated a teenage boy from New Jersey while speaking with children online.
Officials said he pressured children into joining video chats and then recorded them. When victims refused to continue or blocked his accounts, he threatened to send the recordings to their friends and family. Authorities said he stored the files on his computer.
Sextortion is a form of online blackmail where criminals threaten to release private or explicit material unless the victim follows their demands. In many cases, scammers use fake material only to scare victims, but prosecutors said Pathmanathan recorded real victims after coercing them online.
The FBI has previously warned that sextortion complaints have sharply increased in recent years. Authorities advise victims not to continue communicating with the criminals, to preserve evidence, to contact law enforcement, and to report the incident as soon as possible.
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