Online child sex groomer jailed for 30 years

An Indian paedophile who preyed on more than 70 young girls while studying in Britain has been jailed for 30 years.

Bilal Kazi, 27, used a bogus photo and online alias as a 14-year-old boy, “Reece”, grooming victims, posing as their boyfriend and pressuring them, even while they were at school, to send naked photos and videos on Snapchat.

He would then threaten to leak the images online, so victims sent more indecent images out of fear, Chester Crown Court heard.

Kazi, whose youngest victim was aged 10 and who police have said could have as many as 180 potential victims who have not been identified, targeted girls on apps including Snapchat, Wizz and Wink, and while playing Roblox.

He preyed on vulnerable teenagers in particular, many left with psychological damage, feeling “broken”, their innocence taken and teenage years ruined, the court heard.

Twice indecent images were leaked online leaving the young victims suicidal.

Kazi admitted at an earlier hearing to 33 child sex offences relating to 19 victims, including causing a child to engage in penetrative sexual activity, making indecent images of children and six counts of blackmail, between 2021 and 2025.

Judge Steven Everett, Recorder of Chester, jailed the defendant for 30 years, with an extended sentence of eight years on licence, saying: “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.

“We will never know how many victims have fallen prey to you.

“You are a very dangerous person.”

Kazi told one girl, 13, that he was preparing her for sex with him, and told others that sending naked images is what people did for each other if they were in love.

The defendant met another teenager on an app called Wizz before grooming her on Snapchat.

Some of her friends logged into her account and saw a video she had sent to “Reece” – which was shared around her school, spread to other schools and her “whole world fell apart”, she said in a victim impact statement.

“I was young and I didn’t know any better. I became a joke overnight, like I had done something wrong. I was just a kid,” the statement said.

The girl lost all her friends, was bullied, fell into severe depression, and took an overdose.

Kazi hacked the Snapchat account of another girl and publicly posted on her profile the indecent video she had sent him, which was seen by 93 of her friends.

“Before she took it down the damage had been done,” Myles Wilson, prosecuting, told the court.

The girl’s mother found the messages from “Reece” and police were called in, in May 2022.

Kazi, a chemical engineering student originally from Mumbai, was traced, living in Chester but had left the country.

He was then arrested at Heathrow Airport in July 2023, when he came back from visiting family in Kuwait and his mobile phone seized.

Kazi, at the time living in Hubert Croft, Birmingham, while studying for a master’s in chemical engineering, was on bail while police continued to investigate – but continued targeting teenage girls in the same way.

Cheshire Police said their investigation into Kazi became the force’s largest ever online child sexual abuse case, with as many as 180 girls potentially involved, with victims across the UK including in Scotland, Devon, Cornwall, Avon and Somerset.

Police say 70 victims, aged between 10 and 17 at the time of Kazi’s offending, were identified across 28 of the UK’s 45 police force areas.

Kazi was finally rearrested and remanded into custody in August 2025 and police found hundreds of category A child sex abuse videos involving teenage girls, along with 9,000 messages exchanged with one girl alone in the space of three weeks.

Outside court 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.

“I hope today’s result provides the victims with a sense of closure now that Kazi has been held accountable for his actions, and I hope it allows them to move forward with their lives knowing that he can no longer cause harm to anyone else.”

Detective Sergeant Ross Peel said: “Victims should never feel ashamed of what they have experienced.

“The responsibility for these offences lies solely with the offender, and we want anyone who has been subjected to this kind of abuse to know that they will be listened to, supported and taken seriously.

“Our message to parents is to speak to your children and take an interest in the apps and platforms they are using.

“The potential for online offending is vast, and offenders can target children from anywhere in the world.

“By educating yourselves and your children about online safety and the risks associated with communicating with people they do not know online, you can help protect them from becoming victims of crime – the impact of which can be profound and long-lasting.

“I hope this case demonstrates our commitment to protecting vulnerable people and bringing an end to the sexual exploitation of children.

“It should also serve as a warning to those who, like Kazi, believe that hiding behind a screen makes them anonymous and untouchable.

“No matter where you are or how you choose to offend, those who target children and vulnerable people will be identified and brought to justice.”