A man has been given a suspended sentence after buying horrific sexual abuse footage of girls blackmailed by one of the worst online sexual predators the National Crime Agency has ever investigated.
Ashley Corbin, 35, paid Abdul Elahi, 26, £295 in Amazon vouchers and £40 via PayPal for sexual footage of girls
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Elahi, of Sparkhill, Birmingham, is due to be sentenced next month after admitting 158 charges.
He targeted nearly 2,000 people globally to commit sickening sexual abuse of themselves and others. He blackmailed worldwide victims into sending him humiliating and degrading videos and pictures of themselves, children and siblings which he sold online.
Today, Corbin, who has recently changed his name by deed poll to Kevin Smith, was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court to 16 months in jail suspended for two years.
He was also given a 10 year sexual harm prevention order after admitting three counts of making indecent images of children.
On 28 June 2019, NCA officers linked to the Elahi investigation arrested Corbin – a maintenance manager – at his home in West Downs Close, Fareham, Hampshire.
Officers discovered that Corbin had bought abuse material from Elahi on four occasions with Amazon vouchers: on 5 March 2018 with a £25 giftcard; on 7 May 2018 with a £50 giftcard; a £40 giftcard on the same day; and a £180 giftcard on 10 May 2018.
NCA investigators also discovered Corbin had paid Elahi £40 via PayPal on 4 March 2018 for abuse content transferred to his online Dropbox account.
The Dropbox account contained 326 sexual abuse videos and images of girls aged between 12 and 16. There were 43 Category A images (the most severe), 26 Category B and 257 Category C.
Many of the children had been forced to state their name and age on camera.
NCA officers seized Corbin’s computers and discovered he also had an Asus tower containing 130 images and videos, and 4,534 images and videos on cloud accounts.
In total Corbin had 329 Category A images, 604 Category B and 4,990 Category C.
Forensic study of Corbin’s cloud accounts showed that on the day he was released from custody after being arrested, 494 files were deleted from one account and 182 deleted from another.
Andy Peach, NCA senior investigating officer, said: “This was one of a series of investigations into paedophiles who bought Abul Elahi’s horrific content and encouraged him to keep offending.
“Anyone who buys or accesses material like this is fundamentally responsible for more and more children being sexually abused and the lives that are wrecked because of it.
“For the NCA there is no greater priority than protecting children. We will never stop hunting men like Corbin and Elahi.”
The ringleader is a vile and sadistic blackmailer and paedophile has been condemned for his ‘horrifying and sadistic crimes’ which affected thousands of victims.
Bogus stockbroker Abdul-Hasib Elahi blackmailed victims into committing horrific abuse of themselves or others and sold the footage as ‘box sets’ to other offenders
His victims were as young as eight-months-old.
Elahi, 26, of Allcroft Road, Sparkhill, had previously admitted 158 offences including blackmail, disclosing private photos, distributing indecent images, causing a child to engage in sexual activity, fraud, possessing extreme pornography, causing or inciting the sexual exploitation of a child and possessing more than 65,000 indecent images of children – including babies being raped.
The offences were committed between 1 January 2017 and 7 August 2020.
Sarah Ingram, the Crown Prosecution Service’s specialist prosecutor, today condemned Elahi saying the “level of depravity is shocking and will impact the victims for their whole lives.”
She said: “The crimes that Elahi committed worldwide were horrifying and sadistic. He coerced vulnerable children and women to engage in sexual activity and then blackmailed them for his own gain.
“The extent of the offences is almost unheard of. This level of depravity is shocking and will impact the victims for their whole lives.
“I commend the victims for their bravery and urge anyone who has been abused online to report it so that justice can be served, whether the crimes were committed in England or abroad.”
Another defendant, Kirsty Nicholls, 35, from Middlesex, who knew Elahi from a sugar daddy website, had previously pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual assault of a child and one of making an indecent photo.
Nicholls will also be sentenced at a later date.
Elahi provided online ‘master classes’ on the encrypted Telegram app to other offenders teaching them how to blackmail victims and obtain indecent images from children without being caught.
He operated by pretending to be a stockbroker or rich businessman on ‘sugar daddy’ websites.
He singled out victims who were in debt or too young to legitimately be on the sites and tricked victims into sending him naked or partially clothed images of themselves. He also targeted some victims on social media.
He promised payment of thousands of pounds for posed images and sent fake screenshots of money leaving his account in similar transactions to convince victims.
An investigation by the National Crime Agency revealed there were at least 196 victims in the UK and that he had contacted at least 600 people online in the UK
He had also tried to contact 1,367 women in the United States and there were also victims in 20 other countries including Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
As soon as possible, Elahi moved victims onto WhatsApp and away from the websites he met them on.
When he received enough revealing images he threatened to expose the pictures to the victims’ families and friends unless they sent more.
Some of the victims were so terrified they felt they had no choice but to comply.
He systematically categorised all the abuse within cloud storage sites.
He then sold the content as ‘box sets’ through the cloud and via the encrypted app Telegram making more than £25,000.
That resulted in further misery for the victims, with their family and friends becoming aware, and often with more offenders trying to blackmail them again.
National Crime Agency officers arrested unemployed Elahi on 19 December 2018 following an allegation he was blackmailing a 15-year-old girl in America. His mobile phone and computers were seized and forensically examined.
Tony Cook, NCA Head of CSA operations, said: “The investigation team have been horrified by Elahi’s sadistic depravity and stunned by the industrial scale of his worldwide offending.
“Elahi sought sexual gratification from having power and control of his victims and he’s displayed zero empathy for them.
“He often goaded them to the point of wanting to kill themselves.
“The long-term effects on the victims in this case will continue throughout the rest of their lives.
“I commend the victims for their bravery and I urge anyone who is being abused online to report it. There is help available.
