Nightclub bouncer tricked women into sending him nude pictures by posing as their friends online

A nightclub bouncer confessed to tricking women into sending him their nude photos by pretending to be their friends on social media.

Muhammad Rostam Rahim, 28, pleaded guilty on May 22 in a district court to 46 charges which include cheating by personation and unauthorised modification of the contents of a computer, reports The Straits Times.

He accessed the victims' social media accounts to contact people listed as their friends by exploiting a loophole involving deactivated Hotmail accounts.

He would look for Facebook accounts linked to Hotmail accounts that had been terminated and register new Hotmail IDs with these IDs.

Between October 2015 and February 2018, Rostam would ask the friends of the people whose accounts he used for nude photos while posing as a representative of a modelling agency or breast cancer campaign.

The victims cannot be named due to a gag order.

The court heard that Rostam gained access to a 23-year-old woman's Facebook account without her consent on Feb 7, 2016.

He messaged her friend, a 20-year-old woman, two months later on April 17.

He asked her if she wanted to be a bridal model and she expressed her enthusiasm.

He then asked her for nude photos so that he could "know her sizes" in order to choose the best-fit bridal gowns.

Believing he was her friend, she sent him the photos.

He also accessed the 20-year-old victim's aunt's account and asked her for more nude photos and pictures of her in her underwear in order to get her modelling contracts.

Knowing that her aunt was aware of her interest in modelling, she sent over the photos.

When she discovered that she had not been communicating with her aunt, she made a police report.

Rostam is the first person to be charged under Provision 8B of the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Thiagesh Sukumaran, for retaining the log-in credentials of Facebook accounts to be used to access these accounts without authorisation.

He was diagnosed with fetishism by a medical officer from the Institute of Mental Health.

For cheating by personation, Rostam could be jailed for up to five years, fined, or both.

If convicted for unauthorised access to computer material, he could be sentenced to two years' jail, slapped with fine, or both. For a second or subsequent conviction, he could see a jail term of up to three years, a fine, or both.