By Jack Phillips
Contributing Writer
FBI officials, warning of a “sharp increase” in activity by the so-called 764 group and other nihilistic violent online networks targeting children, have issued a letter to parents to keep watch over their children.
The FBI’s Open Letter to Parents, Guardians and Caregivers, dated Feb. 19, said it is now investigating more than 350 subjects around the United States linked to those networks, and that all 56 FBI field offices are involved in the investigation.
“While many of the victims are young females, any child can be at risk. The perpetrators themselves are often males under the age of 25 and come from all walks of life,” the letter said. “They often groom victims by first establishing a trusting or romantic relationship before eventually manipulating and coercing them into engaging in escalating [harmful] behavior designed to shame and isolate them.”
The FBI’s Boston office said in a separate news release on Thursday that victims are usually underage females between the ages of 10 and 17, adding that victims may suffer from depression, suicidal ideation, or eating disorders while lacking reliable friends or family members who offer support.
“They typically have unfettered access to the Internet, are disconnected, and believe they are communicating with someone their own age,” the law enforcement agency said.
The issue made news locally this week in the Santa Clarita Valley, after a Pennsylvania man was arrested and federally charged with grooming a girl who recently turned 13 to send him sexually explicit material of herself and images of self-harm over the internet. Law enforcement rescued her from him after he traveled across the country and took her to a Castaic motel, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.
In late November, FBI Director Kash Patel said the law enforcement bureau is working to root out the 764 network and that arrests in connection to the group are up around 500% from last year.
The group was started by then-15-year-old Bradley Cadenhead, of Texas, who was later sentenced to 80 years in prison for creating and distributing child sex abuse materials, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a human rights group. Cadenhead has said he helped start the group, named after his ZIP code prefix, with a friend he met while playing the game Minecraft.
The group says that nihilistic violent groups connected to 764 may lack an ideological motivation, while linking them to at least four school shooting incidents, five disrupted school shooting plots, and two stabbing sprees in Sweden.
In a statement last October, the Department of Justice said it charged another person in connection to the network, identified as Baron Cain Martin, 21, of Tucson, Arizona. He’s been in federal custody since he was arrested in 2024.
Martin was accused of being the ringleader of 764 in Arizona, “conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to kill, kidnap or maim persons in a foreign country, producing child pornography (five counts), distributing child pornography (11 counts), coercing and enticing minors to engage in sexual activity (three counts), cyberstalking (three counts), animal crushing and distribution of animal crush videos, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.”
And in December, the DOJ announced that a San Antonio, Texas-based man connected to 764 pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering and multiple acts relating to the sexual exploitation of children. Alexis Aldair Chavez, 19, was accused by prosecutors of being an administrator of a network called 8884, which the DOJ said was linked to the group.
In that news release, the Justice Department said that this group and others have “accelerationist goals that include social unrest and the downfall of the current world order, including the U.S. government,” and members of 8884 were working toward the destruction of “civilized society through the corruption and exploitation of vulnerable populations, including minors.”
