A 40-year-old Toronto man has been sentenced in a U.S.federal court to 33 years in prison for a prolonged campaign of online child exploitation and sextortion involving more than 100 minors in the United States.

Authorities say Ramanan Pathmanathan impersonated a teenage boy from New Jersey on various social media platforms between 2014 and his arrest in 2021, allowing him to contact and manipulate at least 145 children, many of them pre-teens and teenagers.

According to court documents and prosecutors, Pathmanathan coerced victims into sending explicit images and videos and, in some cases, engaging in inappropriate acts, using threats to expose the material to their families or friends if they did not comply.Some victims were further pressured into involving other minors.

Prosecutors also described a pattern of escalating coercion and repeated harassment through multiple online accounts when victims attempted to block him.Investigators uncovered a large digital archive of illicit material on his devices, including thousands of images and videos.

The material was systematically organised into folders that reflected the nature of his offences, demonstrating what authorities described as deliberate and sustained offending behaviour.

Pathmanathan was already serving a Canadian sentence for similar offences involving eight victims in Canada, for which he received a term of nine years, seven months and 20 days.Canadian and U.S.authorities coordinated across jurisdictions, with evidence showing overlapping patterns of abuse.In sentencing remarks, judges and prosecutors emphasised the severity and long-term harm caused to victims, many of whom were very young.U.S.officials stated that the case illustrates ongoing efforts to prosecute cross-border online exploitation and to prevent offenders from using international boundaries to evade justice.