OAN Staff Blake Wolf
4:17 PM – Friday, December 12, 2025
The FBI has announced the launch of a probe into “764,” an online group of nihilistic violent extremists who carry out sadistic criminal conduct, including child exploitation and sexual extortion.
According to a recent press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ), members of the 764 group “use known online social media communications platforms as mediums to support the possession, production, and sharing of extreme gore media and child sex abuse material with vulnerable, juvenile populations.”
“These individuals often conduct coordinated extortions of teenagers, blackmailing the victims to comply with the group’s demands,” the DOJ’s release added.
Members often target unsuspecting children online, utilizing blackmail and extortion to coerce them into sending sexually explicit images or harming themselves or others.
“For nearly 20 hours, they attacked, threatened, terrorized, dismantled my child. Every time he tried to fight back and ask why are you doing this to me, please leave me alone, they escalated,” stated Ohio resident Tamia Woods, a mother whose 17-year-old son committed suicide after having an encounter with the group in 2022.
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“James was the victim of financial sextortion, and though he died by suicide, let’s be clear: he was murdered,” she stated. “In those last moments, my son, who had everything to live for, felt like he had no other choice.”
The FBI revealed that the bureau is currently investigating over 350 subjects in connection with the group, after two alleged leaders were arrested and charged in April.
21-year-old Leonidas “War” Varagiannis, a United States citizen residing in Thessaloniki, Greece, and 20-year-old Prasan “Trippy” Nepal of High Point, North Carolina, were the individuals arrested in the April sting.
Varagiannis and Nepal “directed, participated in, and otherwise caused the production and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and the defendants facilitated the grooming, manipulation, and extortion of minors,” according to a DOJ release at the time.
“Varagiannis and Nepal allegedly ordered their victims to commit acts of self-harm and engaged in psychological torment and extreme violence against minors. The affidavit alleges that the group targeted vulnerable children online, coercing them into producing degrading and explicit content under threat and manipulation. This content includes ‘cut signs’ and blood signs’ through which young minors would cut symbols into their bodies.”
If convicted, both Nepal and Varagiannis face life in prison.
FBI Director Kash Patel affirmed the bureau’s focus on targeting members of the group, proclaiming that the sadistic trend is “one of the most serious issues in America and the @FBI numbers reflect it – 500% increase in Nihilistic Violent Extremism arrests over last year and 20% increase in confirmed 764 arrests. Every field office is fully engaged and we’re not slowing down.”
Along with the investigation, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced a trio of bills targeting child sextortion, violent internet criminal networks, and sentencing guidelines for Child Sex Abuse Materials (CSAM).
One of the introduced bills, the Ending Coercion of Children and Harm Online Act (ECCHO Act), calls for the “penalty of up to life in prison if the offense involves the actual or attempted suicide by the victim or the death of another person, as well as a 30-year maximum penalty for harmful conduct that does not involve a death.”
The Sentencing Accountability for Exploitation Act (SAFE Act) was also introduced, aimed at changing the sentencing guidelines for CSAM to “account for modern indicators of especially dangerous conduct,” as well as the Stop Sextortion Act, which increases the maximum penalty for individuals who “threaten to distribute CSAM to intimidate, extort or coerce children” from five year up to 10 years.
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