(FOX40.COM) — A Sacramento man pleaded guilty Thursday to sexually exploiting multiple minors through social media platforms, federal prosecutors said.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, 33-year-old Francisco Mariano Orantes admitted to one count of sexually exploiting a minor.

The DOJ said that the court documents state that between 2023 and 2024, Orantes used Snapchat and Instagram to target at least seven underage girls. Prosecutors said he posed as a teenage girl to gain the victims’ trust and persuade them to exchange sexually explicit images and videos.

Authorities reported that Orantes often sent victims explicit content of the girl he was impersonating and encouraged them to create and send similar material.

Investigators said he screen-recorded conversations, downloaded the content and organized the files on his devices in a folder labeled “Children,” categorizing them by names, ages or other identifiers.

One victim told investigators that Orantes threatened to expose her images to classmates after using geolocation tools to identify her school and home address. Law enforcement later recovered evidence showing Orantes had researched the victim’s location and drafted threats to distribute the images, prosecutors said.

Authorities said in a press release that another victim reported that Orantes knew her full name and address and threatened to leak her images unless she complied with his demands.

Federal authorities said investigators discovered more than 11,000 images and 14,000 videos depicting child sexual abuse material on Orantes’ electronic devices, including content involving infants and toddlers.

The investigation was conducted by the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit of the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Orantes is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 17. The DOJ said that he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in federal prison and a possible fine of up to $250,000.

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