Indian-origin man in Singapore sentenced to jail for phishing intimate images of women

Singapore: An Indian-origin man, employed in the Singapore Air Force, was on Wednesday sentenced to 11 months in jail for phishing women's social media login details to get their intimate images.

K Eshwaran, 26, pleaded guilty to 10 charges under the Computer Misuse Act. Another 21 charges were considered for sentencing, Channel News Asia reported.

From 2019 to 2023, he sent phishing links to 22 victims to get login credentials for their social media, cloud server and email accounts.

Eshwaran targeted victims whom he knew in real life or victims whose intimate images had been posted to an adult forum, prosecutors said.

The identities of all his victims were protected by a court order, which the prosecution requested given the sexual element of his offences.

Posing as a 'helpful netizen', Eshwaran would send phishing links to victims with a message saying that their intimate images had been posted online, prosecutors said.

In some cases, he used a website to generate possible login credentials based on a victim's social media details that he had and then used trial and error to access their accounts.

Once inside the accounts, he would trawl through them to see if the victims had stored any intimate images of themselves.

In the case of one victim, Eshwaran knew she had done modelling shoots where she was partially dressed or in lingerie, and wanted access to those photos.

More than once, he also gained unauthorised access to men’s social media accounts. He would then impersonate the account holder and contact women whom he thought had an intimate relationship with the man to ask for intimate photos.

Eshwaran continued to re-offend in 2023, even when he was out on bail and already under investigation for his earlier phishing attacks.

In January that year, he gained unauthorised access to the Instagram and Snapchat accounts of his victim, a woman in her early 20s.

After finding her intimate images in her Snapchat account, he continued to send her phishing links to gain login credentials to her other online accounts.

In this and other cases, the internet protocol address used in the unauthorised access of the accounts was traced to Eshwaran's home.

His victims also made police reports after realising they were being phished or that their accounts had been hacked.

The prosecution sought 11 to 16 months of jail time. Deputy Public Prosecutor Joshua Phang argued that Eshwaran's offences were premeditated and sophisticated.

Defence lawyer Mervyn Tan said that Eshwaran was a first-time offender and that his crimes were 'an act of mischief, malicious though it may be'.

He told the court that Eshwaran was a regular serving as an engineer in the Republic of Singapore Air Force.

Tan said Eshwaran was likely to suffer professional consequences as a result of his offences, and asked District Judge Wong Peck to take this into account as a mitigating factor.

He also said that Eshwaran's family had 'come together' after his offences and that his parents had 'taken him to task'.

The judge agreed with the prosecution's sentencing position and said there were far more aggravating than mitigating factors in Eshwaran's conduct.

Eshwaran will start serving his sentence on June 19 after the judge granted his request for a deferral.

Tan told the court that Eshwaran's wife had just given birth in early May, and he needed the time to settle personal matters and help her with confinement.