WASHINGTON — The rise of a nihilistic terror cult known as 764 that blackmails minors into sex acts, self-harm, and animal torture has been unnerving federal law enforcement officials.
Just last year, for example, the feds in DC charged sickos, Leonidas “War” Varagiannis, and Prasan “Trippy” Nepal, for allegedly coercing girls to cut themselves, perform gross sex acts, and engage in other horrifying behavior.
“This sick group convinced young girls to perform heinous acts for the group’s perverse entertainment: self-mutilation, online sexual acts, self-immolation, harm to animals, and even suicide and murder,” US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro told The Post.
“This office, along with our law enforcement partners, is working to combat the threat of dangerous online child predators with undercover operations targeted at identifying and arresting those predators and bringing them to justice.”
One of War and Trippy’s victims, a young girl, recounted how she was pressured into performing a “cut-show on at least one occasion after someone had threatened to release her private messages and images if she did not comply,” according to a criminal complaint.
The two men would then brag about what they were able to blackmail their victims into doing, with War crowing that one girl committed “suicide for 764.”
Since 2021, there have been dozens of arrests linked to 764 and its myriad of depraved offshoots, but its scattered online apparatus poses complications in nabbing the sadists who are exploiting minors.
The vile network of cyber predators prey on minors, usually between the ages of 10 and 17, oftentimes girls, who are dealing with mental health challenges.
“Manipulation is their primary MO here; a lot of them are extremely good at manipulating children,” Department of Homeland Security Cyber Crimes Center deputy assistant director Mike Prado told The Post.
“These individuals are taking advantage of the fact that in today’s busy world, a lot of parents may not know what their children are doing online.”
They begin by courting the minors online, often in popular online spaces, and try to get them “off-platform” into private areas of the internet, such as closed Discord channels. There, they’ll pressure victims into disturbing actions such as self-harm, sexual acts, hurting family or friends, attacks on animals, and more.
Victims are typically pushed to record those foul behaviors, which then get used as blackmail to coerce them into carrying out even more abhorrent acts.
This includes firebombings, stabbing sprees, swatting, torturing family pets, and more, many of which have been livestreamed or captured on video.
Almost four years ago, for example, a member nicknamed “Tobbz” allegedly murdered an elderly woman at random to improve his standing within the group.
Victims and members are often pushed into cutting themselves with razors — “cutsigning” their username, “764,” or other phrases into their skin.
“The originators of this and kind of the drivers of this are nihilistic in worldview,” Prado explained. “What makes this difficult is that these cases tend to spider web … a lot of times, today’s victims or yesterday’s victims are now today’s or tomorrow’s perpetrators.”
764’s network of evil cyber extorters has “accelerationist goals,” such as the “downfall of the current world order, including the U.S. Government,” according to the Justice Department. Accolytes want to foment chaos and social instability.
“The goal of these groups in general is to really one-up or top [each other],” Prado explained. “These groups gain online credibility amongst themselves for the increased level of depravity that they can inflict or cause to their victims.”
“It seems almost too wild to believe, but [that’s] what our agents are routinely seeing.”
Prado and many of his colleagues don’t like to comment on specific groups like 764 because it can feed their “narcissistic need for attention,” though the DOJ has identified and made grave warnings about 764’s growing cult of cyber sextorters.
764 was founded in 2021 by Bradley Chance Cadenhead, who dropped out of school at the age of 15 and became locked onto his computer in his room after facing constant bullying and struggles with his mother’s alcohol habits. Cadenhead named the network after the digits of his hometown’s zip codes 76401 and 76402 in Stephenville, Texas.
Online, he quickly flipped the script on the bullying he endured in school to become an internet predator known as “Felix,” cultivating a global cult of sadists on Discord built off his domineering cyber persona.
Cadenhead, who is now serving out an 80-year prison sentence, and his sick followers blackmailed their young victims into filming themselves in disturbing acts. They frequently shared gore and child porn.
At one point, he pressured a 10-year-old girl to share nudes. Cadenhead frequently and cruelly boasted about these extortions, which gave prosecutors ample fodder against him.
“I can give you a guide on how to kill yourself 10 different ways that are very descriptive. sense you’re to f—ing stupid and cant [sic] kill yourself correctly. … i wanna watch somebody kill themselves,” he wrote in one disturbing message, per the Washington Post.
Cadenhead is believed to have been inspired by other wicked groups, such as the neo-Nazi Order of Nine Angles and CVLT, which similarly pressured children into sex acts. 764 goes further than CVLT with animal torture, rape, self-harm, bestiality, and other evil behavior.
“Very rarely do we get a chance to look evil in the face,” prosecutor Jett Smith said during Cadenhead’s sentencing in 2023, according to the outlet. “This may be one of those times.”
Now the feds have to grapple with the sick people Cadenhead inspired and the offshoots of 764.
In December, for example, federal prosecutors charged a 19-year-old who led the “8884” network, an offshoot of 764. He and an accomplice allegedly recorded and tried to pressure a female minor into attempting to kill herself by overdosing on pills.
They also allegedly got other victim to cut their tongues, torture a cat, light themselves on fire, and more.
“I don’t think Stephen King is dark enough to come up with some of the stuff that these kids are coming up with,” Justin Sher, an attorney in the DOJ’s National Security Division, told ABC News about 764 and offshoot groups.
Last year, the feds also nabbed a 21-year-old and a 20-year-old accomplice, who are accused of creating “lorebooks” under the 764 subgroup, “764 Inferno,” where they psychologically tormented at least eight minors, pressuring them to cut “blood signs” into their bodies.
“These defendants are accused of orchestrating one of the most heinous online child exploitation enterprises we have ever encountered — a network built on terror, abuse, and the deliberate targeting of children,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said at the time.
Disturbingly, the feds have “seen a significant increase over the last several years” of that type of cyber crime, an uptick that seemingly began during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Prado.
Pirro urged parents to be more attentive to their children’s online activities.
“I can’t stress this enough to parents – you are the first line of defense,” Pirro said. “Please pay attention to what your children are doing on their phones and computers. Don’t allow them to be trapped by online monsters.”
The DHS runs an initiative called Know2Protect to combat sadistic online exploitation and child sexual exploitation by raising public awareness for parents, including warning signs such as unexplained marks on their kids and odd behaviors toward animals, as The Post previously reported.
While the feds have tools to de-anonymize and track down the typically highly tech-savvy perpetrators, the DHS is keen on prevention by informing parents about the danger signs that their kids could be in 764 or similar sick groups’ crosshairs.
“This is a real threat begins with [parents] understanding that allowing their children to roam the online space, completely unsupervised, without any guardrails, is a potential recipe for disaster,” Prado stressed.