PITTSBURGH — A Burmese man in Penn Hills described by a prosecutor as a "cyber-rapist" in blackmailing at least 250 girls around the United States into sending him sexually explicit images and videos of themselves was ordered detained on Friday after a federal court hearing.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Lenihan ordered Kaung Myat Kyaw, 22, be held in custody pending trial as a danger to the community and a potential flight risk, especially since he's not a U.S. citizen.
The FBI arrested Kyaw in November after an ongoing investigation by the FBI and police in Virginia, Arizona, Minnesota, Buffalo, New York and elsewhere.
Agents said Kyaw, operating from his Penn Hills bedroom, used a phishing scheme to access the Snapchat accounts of young girls, downloaded any nude images he found and then extorted the girls into sending him more images under the threat of exposing them to their friends lists.
Agent Jordan Slavik of the Buffalo FBI said Kyaw made the girls follow a "hell week" in which he ordered them to record themselves in escalating sex acts over the course of seven days, starting with taking nude photos of themselves and progressing to having them drink their urine or smear themselves with feces.
If a girl resisted, Kyaw told her he would send out the videos to the contacts in her phone and "ruin her life," Slavik said.
Kyaw's lawyer, Marvin Miller, argued that his client didn't molest anyone and isn't a danger. He said Kyaw's mother can watch over him and Kyaw's uncle has offered him a job at a restaurant in Monroeville to keep him busy.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn Bloch called Kyaw a "cyber-rapist' who victimized at least 250 girls across the country, with the FBI still trying to identify more, and is technically savvy enough to continue victimizing young girls if he's let out.
"This is a guy who could use anyone's cellphone to find victims again," she said. "This guy is clearly a danger to the community."
Further, she said, at least one of the victims was from the Pittsburgh area, living in Collier.
The burden in federal detention hearings is on the defendant to show why he should not be detained, which is the opposite of the state court system. A magistrate judge has to consider various factors, including whether someone poses a danger or may disappear.
Bloch said Kyaw's conduct alone, regardless of his personal history or his ties to Myanmar, is enough to keep him locked up. She said Kyaw "callously" targeted underage girls and exploited them with threats to destroy their lives unless they complied.
"It's about getting them to do horrible acts under the threat of something horrible as well," she said.
Lenihan agreed and ordered Kyaw held on charges of coercion and enticement of minors from September 2020 through November 2021.
Slavik said the case began in September 2020 in Fairfax County, Virginia, and developed from there to involve FBI offices in numerous cities where victims had contact online with Kyaw. He said the FBI has identified 150 victims and is in the process of identifying 100 others. He said the bureau may set up a website so that other girls around the nation can come forward.
"We do expect to see additional victims," he said.
Agents said Kyaw had 40,000 images of young girls. But he has refused to turn over his password for some 70 Mega cloud accounts, Slavik said, and the investigation continues.
He said Kyaw used several methods to gain access to girls' accounts. In one, he would adopt the persona of an earlier victim, calling himself "Savannah," and befriend new girls on Snapchat. After a month or so of chatting, he would request nude photos. Once he got those, he would contact them using another name and start issuing his threats.
"He would say 'I catfished you, do what I want for seven days,''' Slavik said.
He ordered the girls to send him more images and videos, with the sex acts in each becoming more extreme as the days went by. Slavik said he would demand nudes at first, then progressed to stripping, masturbation, insertion of objects and finally urination and defecation.
As a result, the extortion became increasingly effective because of the escalation of the sex acts, he said.
Some girls told Kyaw to "pound sand," he said, but others complied with the demands.
In the Virginia case, county police there said a 16-year-old girl reported in September 2020 being extorted for sex images stored on her phone.
She said she communicated with "savnxh" on Snapchat but blocked the account. She was then contacted by "jokerxkris," who threatened to distribute sexually explicit images stored on her phone to her contacts if she didn't send more images.
He demanded that she record herself masturbating and send those videos to him. She ended up sending him 20 videos.
Other girls told similar stories, according to the FBI.
A Rochester, New York, girl said she received a text saying someone had accessed her Snapchat account. She followed the password reset instructions and unknowingly sent her username and password. After that, she received a "friend" request text from another contact, "krxs.com," who told her he'd hacked her account and accessed nude pictures she kept in her "My Eyes Only" folder.
"I hacked your nudes," Kyaw told her, according to an FBI affidavit. "If you block me, I will send them to everyone even your friends from school. I will post them on the internet along with you social infos. If you do not want that to happen, you have to make a deal with me!”
He likened himself to the Joker from the Batman franchise.
"U know the joker, im a psychopath like him but a perverted one," he wrote.
Kyaw said in texts that he enjoyed being in control.
"He basically got off on having that sort of power," Slavik said.
If someone refused to cooperate, Slavik said Kyaw's response was, "screw you, I have other girls, have a good life being exposed."
If convicted, Kyaw faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years in federal prison and could get life.
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