27-year-old Bilal Kazi, an Indian PhD student who tricked more than 70 girls into sharing explicit images by posing online as a teenage boy, has been jailed for 30 years. He created a fake online profile posing as a blond-haired boy called Reece. He used to chat with young girls, as young as ten, and then convinced them to believe that they were in a relationship. Then Kazi asked for sexually explicit photos and if they refused, he used to threaten them.A court heard that one 13-year-old victim attempted suicide after Kazi circulated an explicit video of the victim that was seen by almost 100 of her friends. Judge Steven Everett, the Honorary Recorder of Chester, said Kazi had targeted ‘children who believed they were safe in their own homes’.The judge said Kazi had taken advantage of a “lack of proper security on social media sites which should have been there to prevent young persons from being taken advantage of by sexual predators like you”.
Who is Bilal Kazi ?
According to reports, Kazi is originally from Mumbai and studied for his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Chester in the UK. He later studied for a master’s in chemical engineering at Birmingham University. But Kazi later overstayed his student visa.Police were first alerted in 2021 after he circulated images of one of his victims on social media. A nationwide probe was launched into online sex abuse, and 71 victims were traced. But investigators believe that the actual number of Kazi’s victims can be as high as 180, making it the worst case of its kind.A victim who was 12 when Kazi targeted her said the realization she had unwittingly sent explicit photos of herself to a grown man had left her feeling “upset, vulnerable and deeply uncomfortable.” “I’ve struggled with anxiety and I often worry about who has seen the images and whether they exist and could be shared again,” she said.After police traced his identity following the initial report, Kazi was arrested at Heathrow Airport as he arrived back from Kuwait, where his family are believed to live in July 2023, Daily Mail reported. His mobile was seized and taken for ‘forensic download’ before he was released on bail. Police found more than 400 indecent images and videos on his phone, plus a further 500 on his devices at his home in Birmingham.Kazi was rearrested in March 2025. Confronted by the scale of his crimes, he answered “no comment” in response to questioning, with detectives saying he ‘showed no remorse’. He was again bailed but police discovered he had secretly bought a new mobile phone and began targeting girls again. He was arrested for a third time in August 2025 and remanded in custody.