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A 34-year-old Chinese national Lin Rongxin was on Monday (Dec. 5) sentenced to 31 years' jail and 24 strokes of the cane for sexually exploiting 20 young girls and women in Singapore through an elaborate "sextortion" scheme.

Lin, who worked in Singapore for 12 years as a machinery technician, had previously pleaded guilty to seven charges.

These charges include rape, making anonymous threats, and instigating a victim into making voyeuristic films.

Another 57 charges were taken into consideration in his sentencing.

He ran an elaborate "sextortion" scheme

Court documents seen by Mothership showed that Lin, who is married with a son, mainly targeted female teens aged 14 to 19.

These victims were often from China but were studying in Singapore.

Lin would meet his victims on apps, such as WeChat and TanTan, and used false personas to make them send him explicit pictures and videos.

Sometimes, he would make them engage in masturbatory activities on camera.

He would then blackmail these victims to continue sending him obscene footage or money lest he uploads their nudes online.

In some instances, he would ask them to have sex with another man who, unbeknownst to the victims, was Lin himself posed as another false persona.

A few of the unsuspecting girls ended up in a romantic and sexual relationship with him.

Lin was suffering from sexually transmittable diseases (STDs), herpes and Hepatitis B, while he was having sex with five of the victims.

He lived in a dormitory here with his wife and a three-year-old son.

"Depraved sexual predator"

According to CNA and The Straits Times, High Court judge Hoo Sheau Peng called Lin a "depraved sexual predator" in her oral judgement.

She noted that a large number of Lin's charges involve serious sexual offences such as rape and sexual penetration of a minor.

"This most reprehensible of conduct calls for the most severe of punishment for the accused," she said, as reported by CNA.

She added, according to ST, that the sentence was a signal to would-be offenders that the law "has no tolerance for those who abuse technology to prey on the vulnerable".

Top image via Mothership.