The man, who is a farmer in China, was identified as Li of Hunan Province.
He was found guilty of extorting politicians and business people out of thousands of dollars. He has been sentenced to 12 years in prison and was fined 500,000 yuan (about $73,000).
Li embarked on his dubious business by investing in a laptop, printers and bank cards. He then bought pornographic photographs off the Internet for about $320 - and photoshopped officials and business people on the photos through a photo editing program.
Li then sent these photos along with a threatening letter to more than 200 people. He threatened to make the photos public unless they paid a certain amount of money.
Unfortunately, many people placed the money into one of his 20 bank accounts.
Before his arrest, Li had managed to pocket $73,000 out of the $157,000 he demanded, according to court documents.
Many officials yielded to the blackmail for the sake of their public image and to avoid problems or false embarrassment.
