The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) this month warned the public about “violent online groups deliberately targeting minor victims on publicly available messaging platforms to extort them into recording or live-streaming acts of self-harm and producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).”
According to multiple reports, the group is a Satanic pedophile extortion cult that targets minors.
Investigators said they discovered the group, named 764 and other aliases, after the arrest of a Queens, New York, man on gun-related charges.
“These groups use threats, blackmail, and manipulation to control the victims into recording or live-streaming self-harm, sexually explicit acts, and/or suicide; the footage is then circulated among members to extort victims further and exert control over them,” the FBI wrote in a Public Service Announcement.
“An arrest on gun possession charges in Queens, New York, in November 2021 has led the Federal Bureau of Investigation to a pedophilic, Satanist extortion cult that has victimized dozens if not hundreds of minors, according to law enforcement documents, court records and sources with knowledge of the investigation,” The Guardian reports.
NEW YORK: Satanic Pedo Cult Busted
The arrest of a Queens man on gun charges two years ago has led federal authorities to discover a Satanic pedophile extortion cult that targets minors over the internet. Investigators uncovered the group, named 764 while going over disturbing… pic.twitter.com/cZRQr9O7vG— Total Disclosure (@LouderThanLove1) September 29, 2023
Law enforcement discovered the group while investigating “alarming social media posts” by 23-year-old Angel Almeida.
The FBI stated in its public warning:
VIOLENT ONLINE GROUPS
The violent online groups use many names, including 676, 764, CVLT, Court, Kaskar, Harm Nation, Leak Society, and H3ll, but continuously evolve and form subgroups under different monikers. They operate on publicly available platforms, such as social media sites or mobile applications. To gain access to a majority of these groups, prospective members are required to live-stream or upload videos depicting their minor victims harming animals or committing self-harm, suicide, murder, or other acts of violence. The key motivators of these groups are to gain notoriety and rise in status within their groups.
TARGETING
The groups target minors between the ages of 8 and 17 years old, especially LGBTQ+ youth, racial minorities, and those who struggle with a variety of mental health issues, such as depression and suicidal ideation.
EXTORTION AND SELF-HARM
The groups use extortion and blackmail tactics, such as threatening to SWAT1 or DOX2 the minor victims, if they do not comply with the groups’ requests, manipulate and extort minors into producing CSAM and videos depicting animal cruelty and self-harm. Self-harm activity includes cutting, stabbing, or fansigning3. Members of the groups threaten to share sexually explicit videos or photos of the minor victims with their family, friends, and/or post to the internet. The groups control their victims through extreme fear and many members have an end-goal of forcing the minors they extort into committing suicide on live-stream for their own entertainment or their own sense of fame.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The FBI urges the public to exercise caution when posting or direct messaging personal photos, videos, and identifying information on social media, dating apps, and other online sites. Although seemingly innocuous when posted or shared, the images and videos can provide malicious actors an abundant supply of content to exploit for criminal activity. Advancements in content creation technology and accessible personal images online present new opportunities for malicious actors to find and target minor victims. This leaves them vulnerable to embarrassment, harassment, extortion, financial loss, or continued long-term re-victimization. Further, the FBI recommends looking out for warning signs indicating a minor may be experiencing self-harm or suicidal ideations. Being able to recognize the warning signs of self-harm will help you provide immediate support.
The cult, 764, is an offshoot of the Order of Nine Angles, which I mention in my book The Second Coming of Saturn.
They take their worship of the Fallen seriously and think other satanic cults are just LARPing. https://t.co/p0a5mf2jf8
— Derek P. Gilbert (@derekgilbert) September 29, 2023
The Guardian reports:
The key motivators for the group, according to authorities, is “to gain notoriety and rise in status within their group”.
Documents and sources familiar with 764 indicate the group is an offshoot of the Order of Nine Angles (O9A), a violent, subversive amalgam of esoteric Hitler worship, Satanism and Wiccan tenets that American authorities recognize as a terrorist ideology and that has been connected with murders and attempted terrorist attacks in countries including the US, Britain, Germany, Canada and Russia.
Sources with knowledge of investigations into 764 indicate the group has a network of a couple thousand participants and hundreds of highly active members who generate and disseminate the bulk of the child pornography and gore videos found in the group’s channels on Telegram, Discord and more obscure platforms like Matrix.
Like many online-based extremist organizations, 764 involves people around the world, including people in the UK and Germany. A German teenager who is accused of murdering his foster family in Romania is suspected of participating in 764, according to reporting from Der Spiegel and Romanian outlet Libertatea.
The FBI was directed to Almeida by an anonymous tipster flagging his social media accounts, which contained images of violence against children and violence against animals. In one of the posts, Almeida expressed support for Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who massacred African American churchgoers in Charleston in 2015. Another showed him toting a shotgun while shirtless, and wearing a skull mask and crossed bandoliers of rifle ammunition across his chest with a flag in the background featuring an Order of Nine Angles symbol.
While searching Almeida’s apartment in New York, investigators recovered a 9mm handgun, bandoliers of rifle ammunition, books pertaining to the Order of Nine Angles, and a flag bearing the insignia of an American O9A offshoot, the Tempel ov Blood, according to a November 2021 detention memorandum filed by federal prosecutors.
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