Ahmadiyya missionary confesses to producing child pornography, sexually blackmailing five minor girls in the US

Canadian Ahmadi missionary Muhammad Luqman Rana (33) has confessed to producing pornography of at least five minor girls and sexually blackmailing them by threatening to circulate their recordings on social media to injure their reputation.

Rana, who has been using ‘King Cheetah’ as a pseudonym on different online platforms offering a facility to socialize with others anonymously. He confessed that he met his victims on the websites Omegle, Tinychat, and Microsoft email platform. He used to convince the victims to pose in sexually suggestive ways and then surreptitiously recorded to sexually blackmail them in the future, he admitted. He confessed that between June 2014 and June 2016, he engaged in thousands of email communications with children under the age of eighteen through which he sexually blackmailed them into producing and sending him images of child pornography via both live transmission and email communications. Rana made this confession in his 11-page plea bargain application, a copy of which is available with Religion Observer, submitted before the court of Paula Xinis, judge District Court of Maryland. The document was signed by Rana, his lawyer Richard Finci, and Assistant United States Attorney G. Michael Morgan.

The US law enforcement agency, FBI, identified five victims of King Cheetah. The judge has fixed May 8, 2023, for sentencing the accused. Meanwhile, the judge has directed the probation officer to provide the presentence report, having details of the defendant’s biography, his family situation, lifestyle and attitudes, etc. These are the factors a court keeps under consideration while awarding sentence.

Under this plea bargain agreement, the office of the US attorney and the defendant have agreed upon a maximum of 32 years imprisonment, and a $ 205,100 fine. If the defendant fails to pay the fine when it is due, he has to pay it with interest. However, it is not binding upon the court to give him a sentence according to this agreement. It can reduce or increase the sentence. The document said, the court may forfeit all assets of the accused

By pleading guilty, the defendant would have no right to appeal the court decision. The court can deport him and remove his naturalization or immigration status. Rana agrees to the entry of a restitution order for the full amount of the victims’ losses. The court would determine the amount of restitution. The total amount of restitution shall be due immediately and shall be ordered to be paid forthwith, Rana agreed.

Rana has agreed that by making this guilty plea, he would be treated as if he has been convicted of these offenses and would be registered as a sex offender at the place of his living, education, and employment. Had Luqman Rana not pleaded guilty, the court could imprison him to the extent of 160 years.

According to details, Rana persuaded, induced, and coerced at least five minor girls, residing in Maryland, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Washington, and New York to “engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing child pornography and extorted the victims by threatening to injure their reputation.”

The accused was a resident of Peace Village, the Canada headquarters of the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya. The alleged offenses took place between June 2014 and June 2016, when Luqman Rana was in the final year of his seven-year-long Shahid Program to become Ahmadiyya Missionary at Jamia Ahmadiyya, a Designated Learning Institution in Canada.

According to pages 9 and 10 of the June–July 2015 issue of Jamia Ahmadiyya Canada’s newsletter The Western Horizon, a copy of which is available with Religion Observer, Rana graduated as a missionary in 2015 with six other students. A copy of this issue of the magazine was taken down from the Jamia Ahmadiyya website since Rana’s case started to get media attention.

The Justice Department’s office of international affairs worked with law enforcement partners in Canada to secure Rana’s arrest in Canada and his extradition to the US. The investigation was conducted jointly by the FBI and Toronto Police Services.

The Toronto police arrested Rana on March 24, 2017, after receiving information from the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre in Ottawa. He was released on a bail but later was arrested in January 2022 when another case of this series was reported. He is under detention since then.

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