A London man was jailed for two years and eight months after stalking at least 121 victims and writing a rape list, the Metropolitan Police said.
Vishaal Vijapura, 28, was found guilty on seven counts of stalking after he paid over $600 for online services to find his victims’ personal details, including their home addresses and phone numbers, and shared his findings online.
He used the details he found to intimidate victims by telling them private information about themselves during his string of attacks.
Vijapura even wrote an alarming post on social media, titled, “Why rape is better than sex,” police said.
His obsession with combing through potential victims’ information didn’t stop there.
Vijapura created elaborate spreadsheets he categorized with various personal details including the names, home addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, names of relatives, and social media handles of the people he sought out, according to the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service.
“Vishaal Vijapura carried out a shocking, truly frightening and vicious campaign of stalking against a number of victims,” said Helen Shaw, from the Crown Prosecution Service.
“His conduct involved hiding behind a screen and anonymously using social media to threaten to inflict extreme and graphic sexual violence upon his victims.”
According to police, Vijapura paid an ancestry website to find out more details about his victims’ backgrounds and their relatives.
He then took his planned-out attacks a step further and messaged the victims directly by firing off lewd texts.
In one of the texts he sent, Vijapura threatened a victim by saying he would film himself raping her and then post it online.
In another, he told a victim he would make her “completely unconscious.”
Police discovered his disturbing essays describing the in-depth sexual abuse and rape fantasies he sent to some of his victims.
In a desperate bid to avoid losing contact with his potential victims, Vijapura created at least 28 different social media accounts between June 2020 and January 2021.
Once blocked by the person he was attempting contact with, he would simply start messaging them on another account.
His crimes came to light in January 2021 when his victims filed official complaints to police after he published a list of women’s names along with an essay explaining why they should be raped.
Cops were able to locate him using his IP address, and he was soon arrested.
“The internet is now a safer place with future-proofing against ongoing offending from this man in the form of a custodial sentence. This kind of criminality is dangerous and offensive and will absolutely not be tolerated,” said detective inspector, Paul Smith.
Vijapura was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison on Tuesday at Croydon Crown Court in London after he pleaded guilty.
He received a sexual harm prevention order for five years, as well as a restraining order banning him from directly or indirectly contacting anyone on his list.