Alexander McCartney has been convicted in a UK court of “catfishing” for thousands, including an American girl who died by suicide.

A Northern Ireland man was sentenced on Friday to 20 years in prison after being found guilty by a UK court of what has been described as the world's worst crime. “fishing” a case in the country. Alex McCartney, 26, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a Northern Ireland court earlier this year after an American girl who was among thousands of alleged victims of an online hoax died by suicide.

McCartney pleaded guilty to 185 counts involving 70 child victims in court – including illegalencouraging a child to have sex and producing and distributing child pornography. He was also charged with the death of Cimarron Thomas, 12, in West Virginia, according to the UK Press Association news agency.

Thomas, who lived in West Virginia with his mother, father and siblings, died by suicide in May 2018. While chatting with McCartney online, authorities say they tried to force him to post graphic images involving his younger sibling.

McCartney was already under investigation at the time, and was about to face charges by British investigators when authorities discovered Cimarron's identity and the circumstances of his death, BBC News reported on Friday.

Thomas' father, a US Army veteran, died by suicide 18 months after his daughter, not knowing any circumstances of Cimarron's death.

Jim Gamble, a former British police chief who works on child safety, told BBC News it was “a shocking case.”

“The magnitude of it and the horrific nature of the damage done to these little girls makes it one of the worst things I've ever seen,” Gamble said, adding: “Don't look at this and think this is a rare occurrence.”

Detective Chief Superintendent Eamonn Corrigan of the Northern Ireland Police Crime Squad issued a statement on Friday, calling McCartney “nothing more than a despicable child offender who posed as young girls online to train, seduce and sexually abuse his victims, as young as four years old, to satisfy his sexual perversion. and of other online child sex offenders.”

McCartney's crimes took place between 2014 and 2019, when police are believed to have targeted about 3,500 victims, mostly through Snapchat, around the world, including in Australia, New Zealand and the US, according to the Press Association. The case against him at Belfast Crown Court focused on 70 children, including Thomas.

There was no immediate response to Friday's ruling against McCartney from Snapchat. The social messaging app was accused in September having features that make it a popular platform for sex offenders targeting children, according to a lawsuit filed by New Mexico against its parent company, Snap Inc.

An undercover federal investigation found that Snapchat created “an environment where abusers can easily target children through programs for sexual exploitation and other forms of sexual exploitation,” Attorney General Raúl Torrez said in a statement.

In a statement responding to the New Mexico lawsuit, Snap said the app was designed “as a place to connect with close friends, with built-in safety nets,” and said “there are deliberate choices made to make it difficult for strangers to find children on our service.”

“We continue to evolve our security measures and policies, from using advanced technology to detect and block certain activity, to prevent friendships from suspicious accounts, to work in cooperation with law enforcement and government agencies, among many others,” the company said, adding that. it continued to work “with industry, government, and law enforcement to exchange information and ideas for strong defense.”