Waleed Saeed, 31, from Ilford, east London, was handed a 16-year sentence at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday after admitting 17 offences against five victims – including rape, blackmail and making indecent images of children. The Metropolitan Police said he would pose as a young woman or transgender woman on Snapchat, requesting intimate images before revealing his true identity and threatening to expose the victims to their families, communities, universities, workplaces and friends. Two of his victims were aged 15 and 17.
Lead investigator Detective Constable Peter Collington said Saeed’s offending showed “a level of deliberate manipulation and cruelty that caused immense harm”. The detective added: “We know Saeed began offending in 2018, deliberately targeting young men from south Asian and Muslim backgrounds on the impression that these victim-survivors would be less likely to contact police.”
“Waleed Saeed jailed for 16 years for posing as women on Snapchat to blackmail and rape young men, including teenagers.”
The investigation was launched in August 2024 after a man reported being raped in a London park. The victim told officers he had exchanged sexual images with someone he thought was a transgender woman. Saeed soon started sending him threatening messages from another account, revealing his true identity as a man. He threatened to share the images if the victim did not pay, and when the victim said he could not, Saeed demanded they meet in person. The young man was coerced into three late-night meetings in a London park over the following weeks. At the meetings, Saeed – while concealing his identity with a face covering – sexually assaulted and raped him, police said.
It took officers months to trace the social media accounts to the offender. Saeed was arrested in November 2024. Two seized mobile phones were found to contain intimate images linked to further unidentified victims, some believed to be children. He was charged on 19 November 2024 with eight counts of rape, blackmail and threatening to share a photograph or film of a person in an intimate state. Officers then cross-checked Saeed’s online presence with non-recent cases where no suspect was identified, discovering reports dating back to 2018 within London and other parts of the UK. He was charged with a further nine counts in relation to four additional victims on 25 March 2025. On 2 March this year he pleaded guilty to the charges.
Detectives now believe there may be further victims and have appealed for anyone with information to come forward. DC Collington said Saeed deliberately targeted young men from south Asian and Muslim backgrounds, “on the impression that these victim-survivors would be less likely to contact police”.