美国联邦调查局官员表示，他们越来越担心一个松散的暴力掠夺者网络，他们通过流行的在线平台然后胁迫他们进行不断升级的性和暴力行为——逼迫受害者创作图形色情作品，伤害家庭宠物，用锋利的物体割伤自己，甚至自杀身亡。
被称为“764”的网络的一部分，在线掠夺者要求受害者向他们发送所有的照片和视频，以便令人震惊的内容可以与764的追随者分享或用于勒索受害者为了更多。据当局称，一些掠食者甚至为其他人举办“观看派对”，观看他们在线直播折磨受害者。
“我们看到很多不好的事情，但这是我们看到的最令人不安的事情之一，”美国联邦调查局助理局长大卫·斯科特说，他是美国联邦调查局反恐部门的负责人，该部门目前领导着美国政府与764有关的许多调查。
美国联邦调查局目前正在进行250多项此类调查，全国55个外地办事处中的每一个都在处理与764相关的案件，Scott在接受美国广播公司新闻专访时表示。
他说，美国联邦调查局已经看到一些年仅九岁的受害者，联邦当局表示，世界各地可能有数千名受害者。
虚无主义暴力极端分子
“[这]非常可怕和令人恐惧，”一个十几岁的女孩被困在764康涅狄格州的母亲告诉ABC新闻。
“这很难处理，因为我们没有把她培养成从事那种活动，”这位母亲说，条件是ABC新闻不透露她或她的女儿的名字。
去年，在康涅狄格州经典的新英格兰小镇弗农，当地警方逮捕了这名女孩——一名前优等生——因为她与一名海外764信徒合谋，在自己的社区制造炸弹威胁。当警方搜查她的设备时，他们发现了她的色情照片，描绘自残的照片，以及她向764致敬的照片。
正如斯科特所描述的，764和类似网络的主要目标之一是“播种混乱”和“打倒社会”。
这就是为什么美国联邦调查局反恐部门和司法部国家安全部门现在将764及其分支视为潜在的国内恐怖主义形式，甚至创造了一个新词来形容最令人发指的行为:“虚无主义暴力极端分子”
“流血越多，暴力就越多...这提高了他们在团体中的地位，”斯科特说。“因此，在这些组织中，对受害者造成最大伤害是一种荣誉。”
根据美国广播公司新闻对全国案件的审查，在过去几年中，州和联邦当局以儿童色情或武器相关的指控逮捕了至少15人，并在法庭上指控他们与764有关联。
在其中一个联邦案件中，一名24岁的阿肯色州男子海罗·提纳杰罗密谋谋杀一名开始反抗他的要求的14岁女孩。当他三个月前承认阴谋和儿童色情指控时，Tinajero说他相信谋杀会提高他在764网络中的地位。他的判决定于8月。
在另一个联邦案件中，坦帕市19岁的杰克·洛克收集了超过8300个视频和图像，司法部称之为“互联网上最可怕、最邪恶的内容”今年1月，他承认拥有儿童性虐待材料，并被判处7年监禁。
在收集他的收藏时，Rocker将他的数字内容组织到带有“764”和“三k党-种族主义者”等标题的文件夹中。另一个名为“战利品”的文件夹包含了受害者的照片，他们将他的在线昵称刻在身上——这是一种被称为“粉丝签名”的自残形式他还有一个名为““伊斯兰国””的文件夹，指的是制作野蛮斩首视频的国际恐怖组织。
根据当局的说法，764网络的追随者与受害者分享各种暴力内容，而一些人也美化过去的大规模伤亡袭击，如1999年哥伦拜恩高中枪击案，或向受害者介绍其他极端意识形态，如新纳粹主义或撒旦主义。
斯科特说:“他们想让这些年轻人变得麻木不仁，这样就再也没有什么能真正困扰他们了。”
就在两周前，司法部宣布逮捕了一名20岁的北卡罗来纳州男子普拉桑·尼帕尔(Prasan Nepal)，他涉嫌运营一个致力于推广764、勒索年轻受害者和制作恐怖内容的精英网络俱乐部。他还没有被传讯。
在指控文件中，司法部表示，尼泊尔在四年多前与其德克萨斯州的创始人一起帮助推出了764。
虽然指控文件没有指明创始人的名字，但联邦执法部门的消息人士向美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)透露，他名叫布拉德利·卡登黑德(Bradley Cadenhead)，在2023年对几项与儿童色情有关的指控认罪后，正在德克萨斯州服80年徒刑。
根据法庭文件，卡登黑德在社交平台Discord上推出了他的新在线社区，并将其命名为“764”，因为当时他15岁，他住在德克萨斯州的斯蒂芬维尔，那里的邮政编码以数字764开头。
它无处不在
自从最初的764团体成立以来，该团体获得了数百名Discord粉丝，764已经成为一项全球性运动，一系列分支机构和子团体经常更名和改变名称，以帮助社交媒体公司和执法部门追踪他们。
最初的764本身就是以前的极端分子和以戈尔为中心的在线团体的分支。
弗农警探汤米·范·塔塞尔(Tommy Van Tasel)在谈到764和类似的网络时表示:“不要把这当成一个团体，而应该把它当成一种意识形态。”。“它们叫什么并不重要。外面有很多演员...鼓励这种行为。所以到处都是。每个社区都有。”
事实上，范·塔塞尔最终要调查的康涅狄格年轻女孩被一名海外男子吸进了764。
女孩在流行的在线游戏平台Roblox上遇到了他，然后他们开始更经常地在网上交流，包括在迎合游戏玩家的Discord上，这反映了她的家人所说的典型的764相关遭遇。
这名男子让她相信他是她的男朋友，她给他发了自己的性爱照片——如果受害者不满足他们不断升级的要求，764名追随者威胁要广泛分享这种照片。
据警方称，她制作了各种与764相关的内容，包括一张裸体芭比娃娃的照片，额头上标有“764”;描绘她割伤自己的照片;还有一张纸条，用她的血写的，称她所谓的男朋友为“神”
“他们觉得自己拥有她，”女孩的母亲说。
据范·塔塞尔说，由于害怕进一步的勒索，这个女孩开始参与一些她自己忍受过的同样的威胁行为。
斯科特说，通过“代表伤害他们的个人”实施行为，“让受害者成为主体”是很常见的。
据她的家人说，这个康涅狄格州的女孩被训练侵入Roblox的账户并锁定它们——这使得她可以向账户所有者提出要求，如果他们想要回他们的账户的话。据称，她帮助指挥了一系列威胁，这些威胁在2023年底和去年年初困扰了弗农地区的学校三个月。
2024年1月下旬，一名操着英国口音的男子在给弗农警方打电话时声称:“我已经在洛克维尔高中前面放置了两个炸药，如果它们没有引爆，我会走进那里，我会开枪打死我看到的每一个孩子。”
这些威胁让范·塔塞尔找到了那个女孩，她的母亲接受了美国广播公司的采访。这名女孩因与阴谋相关的指控被逮捕，并被移交给少年法庭。
但是甚至在她被捕之前，她就已经开始抵制一些针对她的要求。结果，她家的房子被所谓的“拍打”事件轰炸，即虚假的犯罪或暴力报告试图诱使特警队对某个地点做出反应，以恐吓那里的目标。
“有一次...他们包围了我们整个房子，”女孩的母亲说。"然后这种情况一直持续下去."
斯科特说，当764和类似网络的追随者得不到遵从时，拍打是他们常用的策略。
据范·塔塞尔说，康涅狄格州女孩遭遇的核心人物仍在接受当局的调查。
“保持警惕”
范·塔塞尔和斯科特给那些担心自己的孩子是否会成为764受害者的父母提供了几条建议。他们特别指出，父母应该观察他们的孩子在应用程序和网络游戏上做了什么。
Roblox的一名发言人同意这一点，他在给ABC新闻的一份声明中说，父母应该“参与关于网络安全的公开对话”，特别是因为764“以使用各种在线平台闻名”来逃避网络安全措施。
与此同时，Discord的一位发言人表示，764是“一个全行业的问题”，并且“764的可怕行为在Discord或社会中没有一席之地。”
两位发言人都表示，他们的公司都“致力于”为用户提供一个安全可靠的在线环境，双方都指出，每个公司都使用技术来删除有害内容，并根据政策禁止危及儿童的行为。
Discord补充说，它在“幕后”主动向执法部门披露信息，并“在可能的情况下”协助当局对尼泊尔提起诉讼，据称尼泊尔帮助启动了764。
范·塔塞尔和斯科特说，父母还应该留意孩子的行为或性格的变化，并留意家庭宠物受到的可疑伤害或自残的证据。
斯科特说，如果一个孩子在大热天穿着长袖衣服或试图遮盖身体，那可能是自残的迹象。
范·塔塞尔说:“只要警惕那些令人担忧的事情，并且在你的脑海中记住这一切可能都是网上发生的事情的结果。”他敦促父母们如果有顾虑，就给执法部门打电话。
至于在764中被捕的康涅狄格州女孩，她的母亲告诉ABC新闻，她与当局合作，针对她的案件“几乎解决”，在获得帮助后，她现在“回到正轨”。
“回到有朋友的日子，回到参加活动的日子，”她妈妈说。“还没有回到一切开始时的状态，但她正在接近那个状态。”
FBI has opened 250 investigations tied to violent online network '764' that preys on teens, top official says
FBI officials say they are growing increasingly concerned about a loose network of violent predators who befriend teenagers throughpopular online platformsand then coerce them into escalating sexual and violent behavior -- pushing victims to create graphic pornography, harm family pets, cut themselves with sharp objects, or even die by suicide.
The online predators, part of the network known as "764," demand victims send them photos and videos of it all, so the shocking content can be shared with fellow 764 followers or used toextort victimsfor more. Some of the predators even host "watch parties" for others to watch them torment victims live online, according to authorities.
"We see a lot of bad things, but this is one of the most disturbing things we're seeing," said FBI Assistant Director David Scott, the head of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, which is now leading many of the U.S. government's investigations tied to 764.
The FBI has more than 250 such investigations currently underway, with every single one of its 55 field offices across the country handling a 764-related case, Scott told ABC News in an exclusive interview.
He said the FBI has seen some victims as young as nine, and federal authorities have indicated there could be thousands of victims around the world.
'Nihilistic violent extremists'
"[It's] very scary and frightening," the Connecticut mother of a teen girl caught up in 764 told ABC News.
"It was very difficult to process, because we didn't raise her to engage in that kind of activity," said the mother, speaking on the condition that ABC News not name her or her daughter.
Last year, in classic New England town of Vernon, Connecticut, local police arrested the girl -- a former honor roll student -- for conspiring with a 764 devotee overseas to direct bomb threats at her own community. When police searched her devices, they found pornographic photos of her, photos depicting self-mutilation, and photos of her paying homage to 764.
As Scott described it, one of the main goals of 764 and similar networks is to "sow chaos" and "bring down society."
That's why the FBI's Counterterrorism Division and the Justice Department's National Security Division are now looking at 764 and its offshoots as a potential form of domestic terrorism, even coining a new term to characterize the most heinous actors: "nihilistic violent extremists."
"The more gore, the more violence ... that raises their stature within the groups," Scott said. "So it's sort of a badge of honor within some of these groups to actually do the most harm to victims."
According to an ABC News review of cases across the country, over the past few years, state and federal authorities have arrested at least 15 people on child pornography or weapons-related charges, and accused them in court of being associated with 764.
In one of those federal cases, a 24-year-old Arkansas man, Jairo Tinajero, plotted to murder a 14-year-old girl who started resisting his demands. When he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and child pornography charges three months ago, Tinajero said he believed the murder would raise his stature within the 764 network. His sentencing is set for August.
In another federal case, 19-year-old Jack Rocker of Tampa amassed a collection of more than 8,300 videos and images that the Justice Department called "some of the most horrific, evil content available on the Internet." He pleaded guilty in January to possessing child sexual abuse material and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
While amassing his collection, Rocker organized his digital content into folders with titles such as "764" and "kkk-racist." Another folder, called "trophies," contained photos of victims who carved his online monikers into their bodies -- a form of self-mutilation known as "fan signing." He also had a folder titled "ISIS," referring to the international terrorist organization that produced barbaric beheading videos.
Followers of the 764 network share all sorts of violent content with their victims, while some also glorify past mass-casualty attacks such as the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, or introduce victims to other extreme ideologies like neo-Nazism or Satanism, according to authorities.
"They want to desensitize these young people so that nothing really disturbs them anymore," Scott said.
Just two weeks ago, the Justice Department announced the arrest of a 20-year-old North Carolina man, Prasan Nepal, for allegedly operating an elite online club dedicated to promoting 764, extorting young victims, and producing horrific content. He has yet to be arraigned.
In charging documents, the Justice Department said Nepal helped launch 764 with its Texas-based founder more than four years ago.
Though charging documents don't identify the founder by name, federal law enforcement sources identified him to ABC News as Bradley Cadenhead, who is serving an 80-year-prison sentence in Texas after pleading guilty to several child pornography-related charges in 2023.
According to court documents, Cadenhead launched his new online community on the social platform Discord and called it "764" because at the time -- when he was 15 -- he lived in Stephenville, Texas, where the ZIP code begins with the numbers 764.
'It's everywhere'
Since the launch of the initial 764 group, which garnered a couple of hundred Discord followers, 764 has become a global movement, with an array of offshoots and subgroups that often rebrand and change their names to help keep social media companies and law enforcement from tracking them.
The original 764 was itself an offshoot of previous extremist and gore-focused groups online.
"Think of this less as a group, and think of it more as an ideology," Vernon police detective Tommy Van Tasel said of 764 and similar networks. "It doesn't matter what they're called. There are a lot of actors out there ... encouraging this type of behavior. So it's everywhere. It's in every community."
Indeed, the young Connecticut girl that Van Tasel would eventually investigate was sucked into 764 by a man overseas.
Reflecting what her family described as a typical 764-related encounter, the girl met him on the popular online gaming platform Roblox, and then they began communicating more regularly online, including on Discord, which caters to gamers.
The man convinced her he was her boyfriend, and she sent him sexual photos of herself -- the types of images that 764 adherents threaten to share widely if victims don't comply with their escalating demands.
According to police, she had produced an assortment of 764-related content, including a photo of a nude Barbie doll marked with "764" on its forehead; photos depicting her cutting herself; and a note, written in her blood, calling her supposed boyfriend "a god."
"They felt like they owned her," the girl's mother said.
And, fearing even further extortion, the girl began participating in some of the same threatening behavior that she had endured herself, according to Van Tasel.
Scott said it's common to "have victims who then become subjects" by perpetrating acts "on behalf of the individual who victimized them."
According to her family, the Connecticut girl was trained to hack into Roblox accounts and lock them -- which allowed her to make demands of account owners if they wanted their accounts back. And she allegedly helped direct a series of threats that rattled Vernon-area schools for three months in late 2023 and early last year.
"I have placed two explosives in front of Rockville High School, and if they fail to detonate, I'm going to walk into there and I'm just going to shoot every kid I see," a male with a British accent claimed during a call to Vernon police in late January 2024.
Those threats led Van Tasel to the girl whose mother spoke with ABC News. The girl was arrested on conspiracy-related charges and referred to juvenile court.
But even before her arrest, she had started to resist some of the demands that were being directed at her. As a result, her family's home was bombarded by incidents of so-called "swatting," when false reports of crimes or violence try to induce SWAT teams to respond to a location in an effort to intimidate targets there.
"One time ... they had surrounded our whole house," the girl's mother said. "And then that kept going on and on."
Scott said swatting is a common tactic used by adherents of 764 and similar networks when they don't get compliance.
The man at the heart of the Connecticut girl's ordeal is still under investigation by authorities, according to Van Tasel.
'Be on the lookout'
Van Tasel and Scott offered several tips to parents worried about whether their children could fall victim to 764. In particular, they said parents should watch what their children are doing on applications and online games.
A spokesperson for Roblox agreed, saying in a statement to ABC News that parents should "engage in open conversations about online safety," especially because 764 is "known for using a variety of online platforms" to evade online safeguards.
A Discord spokesperson, meanwhile, said that 764 is "an industry-wide issue," and that the "horrific actions of 764 have no place on Discord or in society."
Both spokespeople said each of their companies is "committed" to providing a safe and secure online environment for users, with both noting that each company uses technology to remove harmful content and, by policy, prohibits behavior endangering children.
Discord added that "behind the scenes" it made "proactive disclosures of information to law enforcement" and, "where possible," assisted authorities in building the case against Nepal, who allegedly helped launch 764.
Van Tasel and Scott said parents should also look out for changes in their children's activities or personality, and watch for questionable injuries to family pets or evidence of self-harm.
Scott said that if a child is wearing long-sleeved clothing or trying to cover up their body on hot days, that could be a sign of self-harm.
"Just be on the lookout for any of those things that are alarming, and just have in the back of your mind that this may all be a result of what is happening online," Van Tasel said, urging parents to call law enforcement if they have concerns.
As for the Connecticut girl caught up in 764, her mother told ABC News that she cooperated with authorities, the case against her is "almost resolved," and she's now "back on track" after getting help.
"Back to having friends, back to attending activities," her mother said. "Not quite back to where she was when it all began, but she's getting there."
