'Sadistic' Pedophile Held 'Master Classes' For Perverts, Sold Graphic Content In 'Box Sets'

A "sadistic" pedophile who targeted around 2,000 victims worldwide trained fellow perverts with "master classes" and sold graphic content in "box sets," authorities have said.

Abdul-Hasib Elahi, 26, from Birmingham, a city in England, held encrypted digital "master classes" to teach child abusers the tricks of getting abusive materials from their victims without being caught, an investigation revealed.

Elahi was arrested in 2018 on reports of him blackmailing a 15-year-old girl from the U.S. An investigation that stemmed from the arrest later revealed the extent of his horrific crimes.

"The investigation team have been horrified by Elahi's sadistic depravity and stunned by the industrial scale of his worldwide offending," Tom Cook from the National Crime Agency (NCA), an investigating agency in England, said as per Birmingham Live.

Elahi admitted to committing 158 offenses against 79 victims, including blackmailing, possession of child abuse material and inciting sexual exploitation of a child.

Investigators found that Elahi had targetted victims as young as 8 months old and had more than 65,000 indecent images of children, including those of babies being raped.

Elahi posed as a stockbroker or a rich businessman and operated out of sugar daddy websites. He often tricked the victims into sending abuse materials of themselves or others and later used them for blackmail.

He would target victims who were in debt or too young to be legally on the sites and trick them into sending naked photos and videos, the investigation found. He then sold these graphic contents to other offenders in "box sets" through encrypted platforms, making more than $35,000, BBC News said in a report, citing the NCA.

He forced the victims to do self-mutilation and successfully blackmailed them to send him footage of them abusing young children including younger siblings, according to the NCA.

"Elahi sought sexual gratification from having power and control of his victims and he's displayed zero empathy for them. He often goaded them to the point of wanting to kill themselves," Cook added.

The NCA determined that he had at least 196 victims in the U.K. The agency also found out that he had contacted at least 600 people online in the U.K. and 1,367 women in the U.S. There were also victims in 20 other countries including Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

A court has scheduled Elahi's sentencing for Sept. 9, along with his co-accused Kirsty Nicholls, 35, who admitted to working with Elahi in making abusive images of children.