‘Satanists’ are stalking vulnerable young victims online

A playbook for blackmailing vulnerable young people into sharing sexually explicit images is being circulated among “satanist” extremists online, analysts have warned.

Members of the sadistic collective known as the 764 network have been sharing a 101-page “sexploitation handbook” as part of their efforts to target young victims online.

The guide, seen by The Observer, includes a section on how to select and target victims – headed with the quote: “Get them young, and they’re yours forever.”

Members of 764  – named after a Texas post code where the founder lived – use social media and gaming platforms to seek out victims with eating disorders and self-harm problems, as well as young members of isolated religious groups, according to Barrett Gay, an analyst for the Institute of Strategic Dialogue who researches rightwing extremism.

“They’ll target communities that they view as vulnerable,” he told The Observer. “So that’s eating disorders. self-harm, places where people talk about mental health issues, [as well as] people who are members of conservative or Orthodox religious movements.”

The growing number of networks has prompted the National Crime Agency and counter-terrorism police to set up a specialist taskforce. The 764 group uses satanist symbols and concepts with elements of neo-Nazism. They are part of a growing trend of so-called Com networks. The group has been linked to stabbings in Sweden, a murder in Romania and suicides in the US.

Senior counter-terrorism officers in the UK have warned that the picture of terrorism and online violence is changing, and existing legal definitions do not cover many of the groups they are seeing. There have been recent cases of young men who are obsessed with violence but lack ideological motivation, a key part of the current legal definition. Members of 764 compete to get victims to self-harm and commit crimes, Gay said.

Earlier this year Cameron Finnigan, a 19-year-old member of the group from Horsham, West Sussex, was jailed over a string of online blackmail efforts including targeting a girl who had expressed suicidal thoughts.

He encouraged her to take her own life and livestream it so he could capture the footage and claim it for 764.

The Home Office said: “The UK government, law enforcement agencies, and international partners continue to work together to identify, deter, and respond to threats from all forms of extremist ideology.

“Prevent [counter-terrorism programme] training is continually evolving to reflect the changing nature of new threats. This ensures frontline professionals are equipped to recognise individuals at risk of radicalisation and make appropriate Prevent referrals.”