A Canadian man was sentenced to 33 years in U.S. federal prison for using social media to coerce more than 145 children across the United States into sending sexually explicit content, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.

Ramanan Pathmanathan, 40, of Toronto, pleaded guilty in January to producing child sexual abuse material and coercing and enticing a minor. Prosecutors said he spent years using fake online identities to contact children and manipulate them into sending sexually explicit images and videos.

According to court documents, Pathmanathan operated multiple accounts on Instagram and Facebook Messenger, where he posed as a teenage boy from New Jersey to gain the trust of young victims. Between at least 2014 and his arrest in 2021, he targeted children across the United States, recording the material they sent and storing it on his computer.

When children refused to continue communicating with him or blocked his accounts, Pathmanathan allegedly threatened to share the material with their friends or family members.

“This defendant spent years methodically hunting children online,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement. “He targeted more than 145 victims, some as young as six.”

In addition to the 33-year prison sentence, Pathmanathan must register as a sex offender and serve 10 years of supervised release. He is already serving a 12-year prison sentence in Canada after pleading guilty to related offenses there in 2022.

Sextortion is a form of online blackmail in which perpetrators threaten to share intimate images, videos or other personal material unless victims comply with their demands.