Police Target Violent Online Predators Incubated by the Com

A global law enforcement initiative to coordinate the disruption of violent online extremism targeting minors and vulnerable individuals swept up 30 suspected members of “The Com,” the decentralized, largely Western adolescent cybercrime community.

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Codenamed Project Compass and launched one year ago by Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement intelligence agency, the initiative was designed to undermine the sprawling network of teens and twenty-somethings loosely coalesced into collectives dedicated to hacking, sextortion and physical crime.

Europol said police have additionally fully or partially identified 179 perpetrators. Police are pursuing spinoffs such as 764, described by the U.S. Department of Justice as being a “nihilistic violent extremist group” (see: Cybersecurity Trends: What’s in Store for Defenders in 2026?).

Violent online extremism often manifests as networks that seek to recruit offenders and victims to participate in what amounts to an “online cult community,” says a report from Europol.

“These networks deliberately target children in the digital spaces where they feel most at ease,” said Anna Sjöberg, head of Europol’s European Counter Terrorism Center. “Project Compass allows us to intervene earlier, safeguard victims and disrupt those who exploit vulnerability for extremist purposes,” she said.

Officials said Project Compass is designed to facilitate the threat intelligence sharing required to tackle this cross-border threat. “The Com operates across a fragmented online ecosystem, using social media platforms, messaging applications, online gaming environments and music streaming platforms to recruit, radicalize and exploit young people,” Europol said. “Its decentralized structure makes it particularly agile and difficult to disrupt.”

Project Compass includes the participation of EU member states as well as the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – plus Norway and Switzerland.

Ian Thornton-Trump, CISO at risk prevention firm Inversion6, likened the violent, extremist offshoots that have been incubated by The Com to “evil as a service.”

“This global scourge of youth cybercrime actors deserves every bit of law enforcement’s attention,” he said.

Some elements of The Com or spinoffs are known now for extortion operations targeting Western businesses, using such names as ShinyHunters or Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters. Police have continued to arrest suspects involved in hack attacks carried out under these banners. In many cases, the suspects are juveniles. Despite the arrests, such activities continue (see: Teenage Scattered Spider Suspect Arrested in Las Vegas).

Experts said many Com participants and members of spinoff groups have refined their extortion skills by running sextortion campaigns against other teenagers.

“In the early 2020s, sextortion of young girls became popular in The Com, before it was categorized as terrorism by several governments,” says a recent report from threat intelligence firm Unit 221B.

“Victims are typically between the ages of 10 and 17 years old, but the FBI has seen some victims as young as nine years old,” the FBI said in a March 2025 alert. “These networks use threats, blackmail and manipulation to coerce or extort victims into producing, sharing, or live-streaming acts of self-harm, animal cruelty, sexually explicit acts and/or suicide,” it said.

One Texas-based leader of a network tied to 764, 19-year-old Alexis Aldair Chavez, last December pleaded guilty to racketeering and child pornography possession and distribution. He faces up to 60 years in prison for having served since at least 2023 as an administrator and leader of the 764-tied 8884 network.

Chavez and fellow online predators focused on “desensitizing innocent children to violence – coercing them to perform gruesome and harmful acts against themselves and animals – with the hope of encouraging further violence and spreading chaos,” said Sue J. Bai, principal deputy assistant attorney general for national security at the U.S. Department of Justice.

In a report last year, Europol warned that multiple elements of The Com and spinoffs continue to focus on building “online cult communities.”

“Online contact with the victims typically starts with innocent interactions before escalating to predatory behavior. Grooming activities are often characterized by the use of the love bombing technique, which entails treating the victim with extreme care, kindness and understanding to gain their full trust,” it said.

Subsequently, as part of their grooming strategy, organizers of these networks often attempt to “normalize violence” by disseminating extreme types of content, “ranging from gore and animal cruelty, to child sexual exploitation material and depictions of murder,” Europol said.

One challenge for tackling these groups is the need to address the underlying societal conditions and pressures that have helped them surge. “More work needs to be done to engage youth in positive behaviors. That means after-school programs, mentorship and a massive influx of family and mental health support for the post-pandemic, traumatized youth,” said Thornton-Trump.