Bilal Kazi, 27, of Hubert Croft, targeted children aged between 10 and 17 across the UK by posing as “Reece”, a 14-year-old boy, on social media and gaming platforms including Snapchat, Wink, and Wizz.
He manipulated victims into sending indecent images and videos, before blackmailing them into further abuse by threatening to leak the material online.
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Cheshire Police described the case as their largest ever online child sexual abuse investigation, identifying 70 victims across 28 police force areas, with up to 180 possible victims in total.
Detective Constable Georgia Hughes, of the Online Child Abuse Investigation Team at Cheshire Police, said: “The scale of Kazi’s offending meant this was a truly mammoth investigation, requiring significant resources and close collaboration across the force.
“There is a misconception that online offences have less impact on victims than crimes committed in person, but that could not be further from the truth.
“The girls targeted by Kazi were young and vulnerable.
“For many, their interactions with him were their first experience of what they believed to be a romantic relationship.
“His offending has had a profound and lasting impact on the victims.
“Many lived in constant fear of what he would do if they failed to comply with his demands, and some have carried that fear with them for years.
“What should have been important formative years have instead been overshadowed by the trauma of Kazi’s abuse.”
Kazi was sentenced on 33 child sex offences related to 19 identified victims at Chester Crown Court, including causing a child to engage in penetrative sexual activity, making indecent images of children, and six counts of blackmail.
The offences took place between 2021 and 2025 while Kazi was living in Birmingham and studying for a master’s degree in chemical engineering.
Judge Steven Everett, Recorder of Chester, jailed Kazi for 30 years with an extended licence period of eight years.
He said: “That’s the sad feature. He’s taken away their childhoods.
“You took advantage of what appears to me a lack of proper security on social media sites which should have been there to prevent young persons being taken advantage of by sexual predators like you.
“It is incomprehensible why any person would do what you did to these 19 different young girls and we have no idea how many others.
“You are a very dangerous person.”
Police traced Kazi to Chester, but by the time they located him he had left the country.
He was arrested at Heathrow Airport in July 2023 after returning from visiting family in Kuwait.
Despite being on bail, he continued offending until his rearrest and remand in August 2025.
Forensic examination of his devices uncovered hundreds of category A child sex abuse videos and 9,000 messages exchanged with one girl over just three weeks.
Martin McRobb, a specialist prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Bilal Kazi acted with absolute ruthlessness in grooming, manipulating and exploiting a large number of young vulnerable girls.
“He befriended them online and forced them to take photos and videos carrying out sexual acts.
“He then blackmailed those who refused to comply with his further demands, threatening to post the explicit imagery to others.
“He posed as a teenage boy in order to attract and gain the trust of his victims and caused many to think that they were in a genuine relationship with him.”
Kazi was already a registered sex offender and subject to a Sexual Risk Order at the time of some of the offences.
He was also given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and a restraining order.
READ MORE: Man jailed for killing Coventry boy Keaton Slater, 12, before fleeing to Latvia
Children can use the ‘Report Remove’ tool from Childline and the Internet Watch Foundation to get inappropriate images taken down.
Advice for parents and carers is available from the NSPCC.
Anyone who believes a child is in immediate danger should call 999.
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