Oosterhout man accused of victimizing 70 girls in sextortion plot, and of raping a teen

Prosecutors said in court on Wednesday they suspect a 29-year-old man from Oosterhout of raping a child, an allegation which they tied to a wide-scale sextortion scheme. Mohamed B. was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in Alblasserdam, and seducing around 70 girls in the Netherlands and in Belgium to trick them into sending nude images of themselves.

The rape offense happened in July of last year, prosecutors said. During the incident, the girl repeatedly told the man to stop, but B. disregarded her please, according to Alblasserdamsnieuws. The victim reported the crime to the police, which led to the arrest and a further investigation into his presence on the internet.

He allegedly used a chat messaging feature in a virtual world game to contact the girls, and then used the imagery they sent him to further extort them. About 50 victims have come forward thus far, prosecutors said during the status hearing in the Breda courtroom.

B. offered girls virtual gemstones in the South Korean app Zepeto in exchange for nude images. He then began to blackmail his victims if the girls decided to stop sending him sexually explicit material. He allegedly told one girl that he would physically harm her family.

Of the victims identified to date, roughly 35 live in the Netherlands and 16 or 17 girls live in Belgium. The investigation is currently ongoing. Contact is still being made with new victims, according to the Public Prosecution Service. The remaining 19 have yet to be identified.

Investigators want to make sure that they have an opportunity to determine who these victims are, and to make contact with them and their families. It is important that the girls are notified about the arrest, the alleged scheme, and that they are offered counselling. The girls can then decide if they also want to press charges.

This comes just under a year after another significant extortion case was treated by the court in Breda. Gianni de W. from Etten-Leur was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison in May and mandatory psychiatric treatment at a TBS facility after he was convicted of the online sexual abuse of 30 victims. There were a total of 172 victims in that case, but not all of them pressed charges against him.

B. is currently in custody and is being evaluated by a psychologist and psychiatrist. He is cooperating with the professionals, his lawyer claimed. The next interim hearing is scheduled for May 27, and a trial date has not yet been set.