A Paris court has sentenced a 29-year-old Indian man, Rohan Rane, to 20 years in prison for leading a "masculinist" group that forced young girls, many of them minors, to perform sexual acts, French authorities announced on Friday.
The trial of Rane began on Monday in a special criminal court in Paris and was held behind closed doors, according to the state-owned France 24 television network. The court ultimately found him guilty for his involvement in an international criminal network that targeted vulnerable children in the U.S., itain, and Canada, coercing them into producing violent and sexual videos.
Prosecutors had sought a 30-year jail term for Rane, whom they described as a "neo-Nazi lover of sadism and macae ultra-violence." The court was told that most of the dozens of victims of the group led by Rane were American girls, many of whom were under the age of 15.
The group, known as "CVLT," became active on the Discord platform ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic with Rane as its leader. Prosecutors said the group was driven by nihilism, racism, anti-Semitism, Nazi aesthetics and values, and a hatred of feminists and the LGBTQ community. Other young male members of the group were from the United States, India, Germany, and New Zealand.
Rane, who had gone to France to study, first attended a commercial school in the southern town of Antibes before becoming a sports coach. He was first arrested in France in 2021 after U.S. authorities provided information about his leadership in the "CVLT" group and how he had boasted about his desire to fulfill his "sadism."
Source: France 24
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