US exchange student in SG gets 20 weeks’ jail for accessing Telegram chats after two teen girls stopped responding to him

SINGAPORE: An American exchange student who paid a hacker to break into two teenage girls’ Telegram accounts and later stalked another former friend has been sentenced to 20 weeks’ jail in Singapore.

Twenty-three-year-old Kevin Gao hired a hacker from a Russian dark web forum after becoming obsessed with finding out why two girls no longer wanted to be friends with him.

The court heard that Gao, who was on an exchange programme at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in 2024, had met the girls on the online platforms Discord and Roblox years earlier. All three victims were under 18 when the offences began.

District Judge Ong Hian Sun sentenced Gao on Friday, finding that despite his mental health struggles, he remained responsible for the harm caused to the victims, Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reported (June 19).

Friendship fallout turned into cybercrime

The case began after one of the girls gradually distanced herself from Gao in 2022. Another girl, with whom he had stayed friends, also stopped responding to him in August 2024 while he was studying in Singapore.

Court documents showed that Gao repeatedly tried to contact the second girl and even visited her home several times in search of answers. Her mother advised him to seek professional help, while the girl eventually told him their friendship was over and asked him to stop contacting her and her family.

After receiving a police warning for unlawful stalking, Gao still wanted answers. Prosecutors said he searched for hacking services on Telegram and eventually found a hacker known as “Wracker” on a Russian dark web forum. He agreed to pay thousands of US dollars in Bitcoin to gain access to the girls’ Telegram accounts.

The hacker used phishing tactics, creating fake Telegram security messages and websites that tricked the girls into entering their login details. Gao later received access to one victim’s account and obtained copies of her messages, photos and other files.

He went on to read private conversations involving the girls and discovered they had discussed him with mutual friends. And when anger replaced curiosity, matters escalated further.

Private chats exposed online

After learning what had been said about him, Gao asked the hacker to create a public Telegram channel containing messages between the girls.

The channel was later shared with one of the victims, who recognised the usernames involved and alerted her friend. The incident prompted another police report.

While the leaked chats reportedly didn’t contain sensitive personal information, the girls were alarmed that their private conversations had been exposed.

The case demonstrates how effective social engineering scams can be, even when victims aren’t targeted for money. In this instance, deception was used to gain access to private conversations rather than bank accounts.

Stalking continued while on bail

Gao’s legal troubles didn’t end there. While on bail, he was caught stalking a third victim in 2025. She had also met him online through Roblox and had been friends with him for several years.

Court records showed Gao tracked her movements on multiple occasions, following her to and from school. On one occasion, he followed her from an MRT station directly to a classroom.

When confronted, he admitted he wanted to see her and later sent her money through PayPal in an attempt to seek forgiveness. She rejected the money and blocked him.

After being blocked, Gao called her more than 1,000 times over two weeks using 23 different phone numbers. The harassment left the victim fearful and anxious. She suffered emotional distress, struggled to focus on her studies and eventually changed her contact details and moved home.

Mental health was considered, but accountability remained

Gao’s lawyers contended that he suffered from major depressive disorder with anxious distress and said the breakdown of the friendships had affected his judgment.

Medical assessments from both a private psychiatrist and the Institute of Mental Health found his condition may have contributed to his poor decisions. His lawyers also noted he would be deported after serving his sentence and was considered a low risk of reoffending once reunited with family support in the United States.

Prosecutors disagreed that his actions were impulsive, pointing to the planning involved in hiring a hacker and repeatedly stalking victims over an extended period.

The court ultimately accepted that while Gao faced mental health challenges, he still understood his actions were wrong and should be held accountable.

Curiosity, hurt feelings, or rejection don’t justify invading someone’s privacy or ignoring their boundaries. Even if friendship begins online, the same rules still apply offline: when someone says no, asks for space or ends a relationship, that choice must be respected.