A 47-year-old Melbourne café owner and chess player is behind bars after Australian authorities charged him with 35 offenses tied to what police describe as a years-long campaign against Twitch chess streamer and Woman Candidate Master Hannah Sayce.
Shumsheer Singh Ghumman was arrested May 1, 2026, at his café in Melbourne’s Burnley neighborhood. According to Australian Associated Press reporting from court proceedings, police allege he stalked Sayce from April 2024 to May 2026. Sayce, a Melbourne-based streamer with roughly 56,000–58,000 Twitch followers who earned the WCM title and has been highlighted as a Chess.com Creator of the Month, obtained an intervention order against him in March 2025. Prosecutors say he kept gathering details about her family, friends, addresses, and travel plans afterward.
The case drew sharper attention during a September 23, 2026, bail hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court. Police told the court that Ghumman allegedly emailed Qatari officials about Sayce. She was later held in a jail cell after arriving at Doha International Airport. Dexerto, citing the Herald Sun, reported the more specific claim that those officials were falsely told she had drugs hidden inside chess pieces. Ghumman is also alleged to have contacted the Icelandic Chess Federation, after which Sayce was detained again in Iceland.
Justice Amanda Fox refused bail, calling the alleged conduct “methodical and planned.” She noted a “level of planning, obsession and determination which is concerning” and found Ghumman posed an unacceptable risk to Sayce’s safety and of interfering with witnesses. No conditions, including an $880,000 guarantee offered by his father, were judged sufficient. He remains in custody. A committal mention is set for October in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.
Court material also included allegations that Ghumman threatened to use artificial intelligence, specifically referencing Anthropic’s Claude, to monitor Sayce continuously and scrape data from the dark web, saying the AI “would not get tired.” He is further accused of intimidating her parents and friends and trying to discourage her from pursuing charges. One charge involves possession of nunchucks.
Ghumman’s barrister, Dermot Dann KC, told the court his client denies the allegations and will take the matter to trial. Defense arguments pointed to possible delays while authorities await responses from Qatar and Iceland and noted that time on remand could exceed any eventual sentence.
Separately, Ghumman has a prior conviction from South Africa around 2011–2012 involving a different woman, Hannah Rhind. He was convicted of attempted murder and related offenses after a campaign that included attempting to hire a hitman and firebombing her family’s Cape Town home. An initial nine-year sentence was later reduced on appeal. That history involves a different person and does not establish guilt in the current case.
The case underscores ongoing concerns about the safety of online creators, especially when alleged harassment crosses borders and involves official channels. Further details are expected as the matter proceeds.
