A youth in Halifax is facing child pornography charges that police say are connected to a transnational online violent extremist group that targets children and teens playing popular online video games such as Roblox and Minecraft.
RCMP have been warning Canadian parents for months about the group, known as the Com network, because of its insidious online recruitment tactics, which involve grooming youth and then threatening and coercing them to engage in explicit acts and self-harm, sexually exploit other kids and kill family pets. Videos of victims are often then used by predators as blackmail to gain more control over them, police say.
“Many of us can’t imagine our children being pulled into a world like this, but children and youth are vulnerable, especially those who struggle with isolation and social connections in the real world, which many do at that age,” Halifax Regional Police Chief Don MacLean told reporters Tuesday.
In May, the Halifax Regional Police and RCMP Integrated Internet Child Exploitation Unit began investigating a youth, who was an active member of an online group called 764, a subgroup of the Com, after receiving information through the Mounties’ National Child Exploitation Crime Centre in Ottawa.
Chief MacLean said authorities discovered the youth, whose identity is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was allegedly acting as a predator, targeting other children and teens and communicating with hundreds of young people worldwide. No local victims have been identified, he added.
The youth faces charges relating to child pornography and publishing obscene material.
Police declined to provide any other information, such as the specific charges and the age and sex of the youth, out of concern for retaliation. The youth has been released and is on conditions.
Dave Boon, superintendent of the Integrated Criminal Investigation Division, would not say how the youth was recruited, saying it’s part of the continuing police investigation. He said there is no evidence to suggest that the youth had also been a victim.
“We anticipate there could be further charges,” he added. “Could be the same youth or other individuals with information we’re sharing with partners.”
While this is the first case in Nova Scotia connected to the Com and 764, there have been others in Canada, including recent charges against a 15-year-old Edmonton girl for participating in terrorism, promoting hatred and possessing child sexual abuse materials.
The group started in 2020, around the beginning of the pandemic, said RCMP Sergeant Danielle Pollock of the Internet Child Exploitation Unit.
“It is a global epidemic at this point,” she said.
According to the BBC, 764 was founded in 2020 by a Texas teenager, and its name is believed to be taken from his hometown’s partial Zip code.
Academics say these methods, which are being advanced in the name of nihilistic, violent extremist causes, amount to a potent and pervasive threat.
“It’s one of the worst threats to our national security,” Gina Ligon, who directs a terrorism research centre at the University of Nebraska Omaha, said in an interview.
She said law-enforcement agencies in Western countries have launched hundreds of investigations into members of 764 but are struggling to contain the group.
The professor said 764 and related groups are at the forefront of the “gamification” of violent extremism because they award adherents online privileges and status based on photos of the people they hurt – including children.
“It’s just really dangerous for Western democracies because this group particularly has cracked the code on how to get into people’s houses to recruit kids,” Prof. Ligon said.
In April, the RCMP issued a rare national bulletin about violent online groups, including 764, threatening, harassing, extorting and coercing children and youth.
The Mounties say these groups groom and hurt children by infiltrating ordinarily benign and popular chat rooms and online games frequented by teens and kids including Discord, Telegram, Twitch and Steam.
“The predator influences the child or youth into conducting acts that increasingly shame, incriminate, or isolate them, making them vulnerable to further exploitation,” the RCMP statement said. “These acts can include recording or photographing themselves, siblings or others.”
Earlier this week, authorities in California announced they arrested a 19-year-old man as a suspected member of 764.
He faces charges of animal crushing, sexual exploitation of a minor, possession of material involving the sexual exploitation of a minor, cyberstalking and transmitting an interstate threat.
U.S. Attorney-General Pamela Bondi said his alleged conduct reflects the depravity of 764.
“These networks seek to terrorize and destabilize our communities by preying on the most vulnerable, and the Justice Department will stop at nothing to dismantle this network and bring offenders to justice,” she said in a statement.
In April, U.S. authorities announced the arrest of two American men in their 20s who are suspected leaders of the group. The U.S. government then described 764 as “a violent online network that seeks to destroy civilized society through the corruption and exploitation of vulnerable populations, which often include minors.”