Sylmar man arrested, accused of extortion tied to sexually explicit photos of local girls marketed on Instagram

Alejandro Garcia Aranda, 23, faces child pornography and other counts.

LOS ANGELES — A 23-year-old Sylmar man was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of using Instagram to advertise sexually explicit photographs of local girls that he offered to sell over the internet, and for alleged threats and attempted extortion.

Alejandro Garcia Aranda is charged in federal court with one count each of advertisement of child pornography, distribution of child pornography and transmitting threatening communications with intent to extort, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

According to the indictment, in April and May of 2020, Aranda used the Instagram handle “valleyhoezzz818” with the self-proclaimed goal of targeting local girls who attended schools in the San Fernando Valley.

It was not immediately known if Aranda had retained defense counsel.

Using Cash App, PayPal, Venmo and Zelle, Aranda allegedly received payments from customers who wanted to obtain sexually explicit content of the victims that he had advertised and offered to sell on the Instagram account. After receiving and confirming payment, using the Instagram account, Aranda then allegedly sent a direct message to customers and provided a link to a zip file containing the sexually explicit photographs of his victims, federal prosecutors said.

When victims discovered that sexually explicit materials depicting them were being advertised and disseminated by Aranda and requested that he stop and remove them, Aranda attempted to extract additional sexually explicit material from them, including by threatening to post further photographs, the indictment alleges.

If convicted of all charges, Aranda would face between 15 and 30 years in federal prison for the child pornography advertisement count, between five and 20 years for the child pornography distribution count, and up to two years in federal prison on the threats count, prosecutors noted.