Federal law enforcement is warning of an online extremist group that targets children on gaming platforms.

The international online network, called 764, is made up of mostly boys and men who groom and exploit young girls or vulnerable people for personal clout and superiority, according to the FBI. The victims are often pressured to send sexually explicit videos and photos, which are later used to blackmail them into extreme and violent acts.

In March, a 20-year-old Maryland man who sexually exploited young girls as part of the 764 group pleaded guilty to child sex abuse charges in federal court.

Erik Lee Madison, of Halethorpe, spent a year blackmailing and coercing at least 10 girls to send him sexually explicit content and photos of them self-harming, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland.

Nick DeGeorge, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Baltimore, said there are currently more than 450 open cases nationwide looking into these “nihilistic violent extremists.” The caseload grows by 100 every few months, he added.

In Maryland, FBI agents investigating these crimes get new tips and information every week, DeGeorge said. But the 764 group involves people from around the globe, making it difficult to track down potential criminals.

The group is one of the “biggest priority threats” for the FBI right now, DeGeorge said.

New but ‘deliberate’ extremism

The FBI has been investigating 764 since its beginnings during the COVID-19 pandemic, when a teenage boy, Bradley Cadenhead, of Stephenville, Texas, created the first group chat and began recruiting people. The name comes from the first three digits of his ZIP code.

Cadenhead was caught and is serving an 80-year prison sentence, but DeGeorge said 764 has “exploded” in recent years on the encrypted messaging platforms Discord and Telegram.

It’s a decentralized network, made up of different subgroups and channels, said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. He compared it to a high school cafeteria made of different cliques. Each group competes over how much “gore” or child sex abuse material they can collect from victims, Lewis said.

Victims are often preteens or teenagers. They’ll encounter someone associated with the 764 group on gaming platforms like Roblox or Minecraft. From there, perpetrators slowly groom them, attempting to befriend victims and turning the relationship romantic. Eventually, conversations move to either Discord or Telegram.

“They’re very patient and very deliberate about this,” DeGeorge said of the exploiters. “Throughout that entire time they’re building up basically a little intelligence database where they know who they are, they know what school they go to, they know the name of their parents, they know where they live, they know who their best friends are.”

Once trust is gained, the 764 members will use that information to blackmail victims, sometimes threatening to kill their family members or leak sexually explicit photos to their school. They force victims to record themselves hurting their pets or carving symbols or words into their bodies. In some cases, members have coerced victims into committing suicide on camera, DeGeorge said.

This content is collected into a digital “lore book” that members use to charge others for access to “gore material” or as a “trophy” to gain notoriety, DeGeorge said.

Maryland is seeing more 764 activity

DeGeorge said the FBI has found victims, 764 members or both in every county in Maryland. He added there are over a dozen cases in Delaware and Maryland that investigators with the FBI’s Baltimore field office are actively investigating.

The office receives about two referrals a week, meaning local law enforcement or tip lines alert them to a potential victim or suspect, he said.

Turning those federal investigations into federal cases can be difficult, though, because most of the people exploiting victims are also minors, as young as 12 or 13 in some cases. DeGeorge said the field office teams up with local and state law enforcement to bring in minors they suspect of engaging with the group. The state’s attorney’s office will then decide how to prosecute them.

“Just because they are a juvenile does not mean the state will treat them as a juvenile,” DeGeorge said. If the case is “egregious” enough, which many are, the state will prosecute them as adults, he added.

There is at least one minor involved in the 764 network being prosecuted as an adult in Maryland, according to DeGeorge, who couldn’t share more details.

Talking to your kids about these groups is the best way to protect them, experts say

Social media platforms like Roblox, Minecraft, Discord and Telegram are “fertile breeding grounds” for targeting victims, Lewis said. Companies have made “minimal, if any,” changes to protect kids in recent years, he added.

When DeGeorge’s team is out on search warrants or helping victims, he said parents often ask him what they can do to help their child.

“Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of these occurrences, the parents had no idea,” he said. “They had no idea that their child was active within these online groups, whether they are subject or victim.”

DeGeorge and his team are working to change that by educating local law enforcement agencies about signs a child might be interacting with the group. They are also working with public schools and the Maryland Center for School Safety to spread the word, he said.

He encouraged parents and guardians to speak with children about the network. Parents should tell them to talk with a trusted adult if they’ve encountered someone online who is asking them uncomfortable questions or if they come across something that “doesn’t seem right.”

Victims often tell investigators that they’re “trapped” in the abuse and “don’t feel a way out,” DeGeorge said.

“I just want them to know that it is never too late,” he said. “I can promise them that if they come to us for help, we are going to do everything possible to not only help them and get them the resources they need, but to also seek justice.”

If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

To report tips related to the group, you can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or go to tips.fbi.gov.