Sylmar man arrested, charged with extortion related to sexually explicit photos of local girls that were advertised on Instagram – Daily News

LOS ANGELES — A 23-year-old Sylmar man was arrested Tuesday on charges of using Instagram to advertise sexually explicit photos of local girls that he offered for sale online, as well as on charges of making threats and attempted extortion.

Alejandro Garcia Aranda has been charged in federal court with advertising child pornography, disseminating child pornography and communicating threats with intent to extort, the United States Attorney’s Office announced.

According to the indictment, in April and May 2020, Aranda used an Instagram account called “valleyhoezzz818” to target local girls attending schools in the San Fernando Valley.

It was not initially known whether Aranda had hired an attorney.

Using Cash App, PayPal, Venmo and Zelle, Aranda allegedly received payments from customers who wanted to obtain sexually explicit content of the victims, which he advertised and offered for sale on his Instagram account. After receiving and confirming the payment, Aranda allegedly used his Instagram account to send a direct message to the customers and provided a link to a zip file containing sexually explicit images of his victims, federal prosecutors said.

According to the indictment, when the victims discovered that Aranda was advertising and distributing sexually explicit materials depicting them and demanded that he cease and desist and remove the images, Aranda attempted to obtain more sexually explicit materials from them, including by threatening to publish additional images.

If convicted on all charges, Aranda faces a sentence of 15 to 30 years in federal prison for advertising child pornography, 5 to 20 years in federal prison for disseminating child pornography and up to two years in federal prison for making threats, prosecutors noted.