The name of the group sounds innocuous enough: 764.
But the ordinary-seeming number hides one of the most disturbing trends in the US’scriminal landscape, disguising a brutal and sinister online group that exploits its victims in cyberspace and is now a top target for US law enforcement.
Last week,the FBIrevealed it has opened investigations into 250 individuals affiliated with 764 and other online networks of predators who befriend minors and other vulnerable people and coerce them to create sexually explicit material and commit acts such as harming themselves or animals.
The federal agency has investigated the phenomenon since at least 2023 andwarned the publicabout 764, a loose network of people that engage in violent, predatory behavior. The FBI reported that all its 55 field offices were investigating 764 and similar networks.
In 2024, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline received more than 1,300 reports connected to groups such as 764 that perpetrate sadistic online exploitation, a more than 200% increase from 2023,according to the organization.
“It is really important that law enforcement is looking into the individuals that are perpetrating this abuse and seeing if they can have any successful investigations,” said Kathryn Rifenbark, the CyberTipline director.
The network started with Bradley Cadenhead, a teen in a zip code in Texas from which the 764 name is derived who played Minecraft and watched ultra-violent “gore” content online, according to aninvestigation conductedby Wired, Der Spiegel, Recorder and the Washington Post.
He created a Discord server called 764 to distribute child sexual abuse material and seek out vulnerable children. He and others on the server lured women into video chats and extorted them to cut themselves or perform live sexual acts, the news organizations reported.
In 2021, Discord identified 764 and its hundreds of users and reported them to law enforcement, according to the report.
Cadenhead was arrested and sentenced to 80 years in prison in 2023, but there are now predators in 764 and various splinter groups around the world.
In April, Leonidas Varagiannis, a 21-year-old US citizen in Greece, and Prasan Nepal, a 20-year-old in North Carolina, were arrested and charged for allegedly leading a “core subgroup” known as 764 Inferno in which they “ordered their victims to commit acts of self-harm and engaged in psychological torment and extreme violence against minors”, according to apress releasefrom the justice department.
“The network is loosely coordinated based on individuals of like mind” who “wish to cause harm to other humans, especially kids”, said Ben Halpert, founder and president ofSavvy Cyber Kids, a group that aims to educate young people about cyber safety and ethics.
In November 2023, schools in Vernon, Connecticut, started receiving bomb threats and warnings of mass shootings, according to Thomas Van Tasel, a detective with the local police department.
It turned out a member of a 764 group had befriended a local teenage girl online and encouraged her to send sexually explicit and self-mutilation material. He then extorted her for information, including about a local teacher, which he used to make the threats, Van Tasel said. The local teen was also suspected of making bomb threats.
Eventually, the two broke up, and another person, who lived in Europe, started claiming he was the local teen during threats, which led police to her, Van Tasel said. The student had been on the honor roll most her life, according to her parents.
The police did not disclose her name because she was a minor when she helped the 764 member and they also considered her, in some part, a victim, which is common, Van Tasel said.
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“We were able to charge her with conspiring with others in the group to make these bomb threats, but ultimately, the biggest goal with her was to get her some treatment so that she herself could recover,” Van Tasel said.
Victims are often afraid to deny offenders’ requests or to report the predatory behavior because they worry the offenders will share their sexually explicit or self-mutilation videos or because the offenders know where they live and could “swat” them, Rifenbark said, referring to the practice of making fake calls to the police that provoke an armed response.
She is unsure whether the increase in reports of online exploitation is primarily because there are more victims or just greater reporting due to increased awareness of the predatory behavior, at least in part due to media coverage of 764.
Jessica S Tisch, commissioner of the New York police department, and Rebecca Weiner, the department’s deputy commissioner for intelligence, also wrote this week in theNew York Postthat 764 and similar groups are “the stuff of nightmares, and dismantling these virulent networks is now a top national security priority across the United States and Europe”.
“Parents, do you know what your kids are doing online?” they wrote. “If not, the answer may terrify you.”
Van Tassel said he provided information on the person who preyed on the Connecticut teen – and someone he worked in partnership with – to theFBI, and the investigation is pending.
As to the local teen, Van Tassel said she is doing better and returning to the activities she was engaged in before getting caught up in 764.
He added: “Any victim that is part of this problem is looking at years of therapy.”
If you or someone you know is a victim of such exploitation, you can report it and get help athttps://report.cybertip.orgor by calling 1-800-843-5678.