SINGAPORE: An Air Force regular was sentenced to 11 months in prison on Wednesday (May 15) for obtaining intimate images of women by phishing their social media login details.
K. Eshwaran, 26, pleaded guilty to 10 charges under the Computer Misuse Act. A further 21 charges were considered for sentencing.
From 2019 to 2023, he sent phishing links to 22 victims to obtain login credentials for social media, cloud servers, and email accounts.
Prosecutors said Eshwaran targeted victims he knew in real life or whose intimate images had been posted on adult forums.
The identities of all of his victims were protected by court orders requested by prosecutors given the sexual element of his crimes.
Prosecutors said Eshwaran posed as a “friendly netizen” and sent phishing links to victims with messages about intimate images posted online.
He planned to include screenshots with sexual captions taken from random pornographic websites or screenshots of his victims posted on adult forums.
In some cases, they used websites to generate login credentials based on victims’ social media details and access their accounts through trial and error.
Once accessing the accounts, he searched them to see if the victims had saved intimate images of themselves that they desired for their own sexual gratification.
In the case of one female victim, Eshwaran knew that she had posed for partially clothed and lingerie modeling shoots and wanted access to those photos.
Unauthorized access to the man’s social media accounts was also obtained multiple times. They then impersonated the account owner and contacted women who appeared to be in intimate relationships with the man and requested intimate photos.
Eshwaran continued to reoffend in 2023, when he was out on bail and already under investigation for an earlier phishing attack.
In January of the same year, he gained unauthorized access to the Instagram and Snapchat accounts of the victim, a woman in her early 20s.
After finding her intimate images on her Snapchat account, he continued to send her phishing links to obtain login credentials to her other online accounts.
In this and other cases, the Internet protocol address used to gain unauthorized access to the account was traced to Eswaran’s home.
When his victims realized they were being phished or had their accounts hacked, they called the police.
Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 11 to 16 months in prison. Deputy Public Prosecutor Joshua Pang argued that Eshwaran’s crime was planned and sophisticated.
Pan said the crime required the ability to use phishing tools that were unknown to the public and difficult to detect.
Mr Marvin Tan, a defense lawyer at Anthony Law Firm, said Mr Eshwaran was a first-time offender and his crime was “an act of mischief, although it may have been malicious”.
He told the court that Mr Eshwaran was on regular duty as an engineer with the Republic of Singapore Air Force.
Mr Tan said Mr Eshwaran was likely to suffer serious professional consequences as a result of his offending and asked District Judge Wong Pek to consider this as a mitigating factor.
He also said that after Eshwaran’s crime, his family “came together” and his parents “took him on a mission.”
The judge agreed with the prosecution’s sentencing stance, saying there were far more aggravating factors than mitigating factors in Mr. Eshwaran’s conduct.
Eswaran will complete his sentence on June 19 after the judge granted his request for a suspended sentence.
Mr Tan told the court that Mr Eshwaran’s wife had just given birth in early May and he needed time to resolve personal issues and assist with her confinement.
In response to questions from the media, the Defense Ministry said Eshwaran, who holds the rank of Military Specialist 1, has been suspended from all duties following his arrest.
“The SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) will take further action once the court proceedings are concluded, which may include his discharge from the military,” the ministry said.
He added that the SAF holds its military personnel to high standards of discipline and integrity, and those who commit crimes will be punished according to the law.