A 31-year-old Indian has been jailed in US for sexually harassing several children through a social media app.
Authorities said the man used to pose as a teenager to gain trust of children on the app and would then threaten and extort them with child pornography when they refused his requests.
Sai Kumar Kurremula, 31, an Indian national living in Edmond, Oklahoma has been sentenced to 35 years in jail.
Kurremula had been living on an immigrant visa. US Attorney Robert Troester in a statement said, “He has been sentenced to serve 420 months in federal prison for the sexual exploitation of three children and transportation of child pornography.”
After serving his term in a federal prison, he will also have to undergo a lifetime term of supervised release.
In announcing his sentence, US District Judge Charles Goodwin noted that these offences are among those that society considers the most serious because they involve such vulnerable victims. Goodwin further highlighted that Kurremula inflicted trauma on his victims that will echo throughout their lives and their families’ lives, and his lengthy sentence of imprisonment reflects that trauma.
Kurremula was charged in April last year with sexual exploitation of children and transportation of child pornography.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched an investigation in October 2023 into a social media account that was sexually exploiting minor girls. The account’s Internet Protocol address led authorities to Kurremula.
