A new warning from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in collaboration with the Maine Information and Analysis Center.
A network of violent predators may be trying to target your children online.
One of the major groups is known as “764”, based out of Texas.
The terror group exploits young victims, many between the ages of 10 and 17.
We do want to warn you; some of these details are disturbing.
“They want to provide chaos to the world and to engage with those individuals to try to achieve that goal, unfortunately,” said Lieutenant Mathew Casavant, director of the Maine Information and Analysis Center (MIAC).
These ‘764’ extremists, along with other violent online networks, are preying on teens on popular social media platforms, gaming apps, and messaging services.
The FBI says these violent actors often target vulnerable children and those who struggle with a variety of mental health issues, including depression, eating disorders, or suicidal ideation.
Oftentimes, they groom their victims by first establishing trust in them.
“The big thing is, they want to be able to manipulate those individuals, and by having maybe some information or photographs, maybe they don’t want the world to see, they can get them to do a lot of different things. That might be torture to animals. It might be cutting themselves. It could very well be the “splash” that they want of that information, the shock value.”
Officials say photos or videos of these acts can be sent to other members of the network to continue to extort the victims and establish control.
“What we see a lot of the time is maybe a swatting call at a residence, which is a very common issue on gaming platforms. They can dox them online and provide all their personal information or their family’s personal information for the world to see, which would create certain issues for them as far as their engagement online,” Casavant explained.
