Front Burner - 764: the violent extremist network targeting kids online

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

A recent terrorism arrest in Alberta has been linked to the group 764, an extremist network that coerces children into self-harming and sharing sexual material. But many of the perpetrators aren't adults, they're also minors.CBC’s senior reporter and co-host of The Fifth Estate, Ionna Roumeliotis, has reported extensively on the 764 network. She joins Jayme Poisson to talk about who this group is, how it operates, and why some victims have struggled to get law enforcement to take action.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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Hi, everyone, I'm Jamie Poisson. And just a note, before we go ahead, please be aware that today's episode contains disturbing details about harm to children and sexual exploitation. Earlier this week, a 17-year-old in Lethbridge, Alberta was arrested on charges of terrorism,

possession and distribution of child sexual abuse and exploitation material, and animal cruelty. The teen is believed to be part of the 764 network, a transnational group that preys on vulnerable kids, lowering them from popular gaming and social platforms and then encouraging self-harm, violence, and sharing sexual material. My colleague Joanna Ramiliotis has reported extensively on the

764 network for the Fifth Estate. She joins me now to talk about what this group is, how it operates, and why some victims have struggled to get law enforcement to take action. Yawanna, it's really great to have you, as always. Thanks so much for taking the time. Of course. So as I mentioned in the intro earlier this week, the 17-year-old in Lethbridge was arrested and charged with terrorism offenses, child sexual abuse, exploitation offenses, animal cruelty, and connection with 764. We don't know more beyond that at this point, but you have, of course, been reporting on this network for several years now. And I'm hoping that today we can talk about it and get into it as disturbing as it is. And just maybe we can start with one of the first people you encounter. a girl named Trinity. She was 15, I believe, when 764 found her, and just can you tell me about her? Trinity is a young woman that we met in the course of our investigations into 764. And she and her mom at the time lived in Alberta.

Our earlier investigations had centered around the United States. The FBI were the ones leading these investigations. Canada at the time, during our first story, did not. seem aware of the network or what it's trademark was, all the things that you mentioned earlier about self-harm, about child sexual exploitation material, harm to animals, harm to themselves. It was a really new novel threat that was emerging at the time, even for the FBI. So in Canada, the awareness wasn't quite there until we connected with Trinity and her mom. And that her story was horrendous. She'd been exploited by several members of 764, including the founder of 764,

who was arrested in the United States and sentenced to 80 years in prison. And her story was really one that was echoed in other interviews that we did later with people who would not speak to us publicly, but who shared their experiences. So she was a young girl who had a history of sexual abuse. She had hurt herself in the past in terms of attempts at suicide and self-harm. She was a prime target for a group like 7-6-4. and I use the word group loosely, it's more of a network of loose connections rather than a hierarchical group as we discovered. And what they typically do is find vulnerable people on platforms and then invite them to private chat rooms. I met these people on accident. One of my friends was showing me

these Gore videos on Discord, invited me to one of them, and then I ended up like talking in those servers. I saw lots of girls naked, covered in blood, lots of starving girls. There was a video of a girl who hung herself on her closet, lots of animals being tortured. I was like, oh my God, this is terrible, but I also wanted to fit in. Once she was in those platforms, she described what, you know, experts call love bombing, you know, being told that she was beautiful, a princess. And in conjunction with that, started the demands for sexually explicit images for her to hurt her. herself on camera, often on a live stream, and then those images would be used as blackmail for more.

I got threatened that they would send my photos to my school, my mom, my friends. They would tell everybody, everything I've ever done. And like, it was, it was really like terrible blackmail. How scared were you? Terrified. Absolutely terrified. That's how the threats began. And that's how the cycle continued for quite some time before she was finally admitted to hospital after a suicide attempt and the police were alerted. I mean, it's horrific listening to her accounts. At one point, she talks about using a knife, right, to carve something onto her chest. Yeah, that is a textbook, trademark of 764. They want their victims to harm themselves in the form of cutting, self-harming. They also call them fan signs where they

asked that their victims carve their initials on their body as a sign of devotion, if you will. And Trinity was certainly, at one point, she said her entire body was cut up, including those initials of some of her worst perpetrators. I can't help notice some of the language that you've used here words like love bone, right? And they seem to suggest some kind of romantic underpinning here. Is this the case? Oh, absolutely. I think that's the emotional manipulation and that's the part that keeps young vulnerable people in those loops for longer than, you know, that you might expect. In Trinity's case, some of the interactions and some of the manipulations she acknowledged felt more transactional. Sometimes they would give her money in exchange for an image.

But others, including her main perpetrator who is serving time in an American prison, was often framed as a relationship, someone that she was devoted to, someone who. was devoted to her. And it doesn't mean that the love bomb started and then stopped. It continued while the exploitation continued and it enabled it because she felt connected to this person. However, you know, however distorted, that sense of love was. And she talked about the fact that she was craving attention. She was craving affection from a male, something that had been missing in her life. I'm at MK Ultra a few months into my telegramming. I told him I had been assaulted at a young age. He was obsessed at that. He said

to me that he wanted to do the same things to me. He wish he was my family member that did that. So however distorted it was, it felt like love to her and after and since she's untangled that, but in the time, during those moments, it was certainly something

that was entwined in the abuse that she was also going through. I just want to zoom out a bit more here. So you talked about how this is like a loose network. Could you say more about that for me? Sure. So 764, when it appeared in advisories and public safety advisors from the FBI first and then the RCMP later, they're described as loose networks of individuals who don't have a clear ideology. They are neo-Nazi, satanic, acceleration is there's no goal to cause harm for a certain end. It is violence for the sake of

violence. And public safety experts talk about that as being the driving force, which makes it that much more depraved and disturbing. Because again, there's nothing you can pin to it. There's no kind of framework by which you can try to investigate it. There's no activism. They're not even worried about, you know, the disappearance of the white race. This is actually a interracial community. or they just want to be the most violent, the most misanthropic type of individual they can be? The violence itself, it's a nihilistic. It is hurting people for enjoyment often

and for gratification and for clout. So there's no sense of we're doing this for a better good or a social ideology. It is really just violence for the sake of violence and targeting the most vulnerable in our community. I know there's like not a conventional hierarchy, But there does appear to be hierarchy and status still, right? The 764 Inferno.

And just tell me more about that. Who is permitted to access that inner circle? What does membership require? You know, people that we spoke to for our documentaries, there is a lot of bragging rights going on. There's no clear leader of 764. Bradley Cadenhead is attributed to the person who created the group and naming it after the area code of where,

he lived in Texas. So once he was arrested, there was a vacuum for about a minute because this is online. People come along and they start wrestling in and saying, well, we're part of this group and now we're running this group. And I remember as part of our first story, I spoke to somebody who was an original member of a group called CVLT, which was a predecessor to 764. And he told me, in an interview from prison, he told me about, you know, how people kind of start. They go in there. They call themselves members, they call themselves leaders, they disappear, somebody else takes on that title without any real vetting, because this is, again, like you mentioned, a loose network. So the inferno group that you mentioned was a subgroup. And subgroups are quite common with

764. So that one was called 764 Inferno, I believe. There were two men arrested last spring in connection to that group. One of them was one of Trinity's perpetrators. He went by the moniker Trippi, which shows you all those interconnections. So it is evolving. definitely as a group. I don't put a lot of credibility behind people who suggest that they are the ones running it, simply because it's really hard to track that. And that is also primarily coming from investigators who spend a lot of time kind of monitoring these groups online, including folks here at public safety.

And you've reported on these documents called lore books, which are collections of materials that, according to police, actually function as, like, currency within the network. Like, what exactly does that mean? Lore books are pretty disturbing. They're basically an online scrapbook. Imagine a perpetrator has several victims. They basically depict the so-called fan signs.

Those are the initials being carved. Or, you know, sexually explicit images that they've demanded they take or exploited them into taking. The biggest incentive in these groups, according to public safety experts we spoke to, is clout. They're chasing social clout online. and these so-called lore books are, you know, what they call receipts proof that they've managed to exploit X number of people. I know this is already incredibly disturbing for people to be listening to, but I wonder if you could just go through some examples for me of just how far some of this has gone. You know, Trinity is a really good example of how extreme it can get. Vulnerable minors are not only pushed to self-harm and carve initials or,

in some case, in Trinity's case, swastikas on her body. They're also pushed to harm pets to plot attacks on their own family members, including siblings and their parents. At one point, Trinity was considering doing that in terms of attacking her own mom. I was supposed to kill her and then he was supposed to come and we were supposed to go on a literal killing spree where he would abduct females, rape them, and then kill them. And then the plan was like when the cops inevitably showed up, we were supposed to just shoot ourselves. And her mom told us that for several months she slept with a knife under her pillow. She didn't feel safe around her own daughter.

For many months, I lived in fear that she was going to kill me. My animals were behind a locked door. Every door in my house had a lock code. I started to go through her phone and I found some things that were very alarming. She would say, I need my phone back. They love me. If I'm not on the internet, they're going to tell everybody. They're going to show everybody.

You have to give it back to me. She would break through drywall to get to me. She would get violent. She would start screaming and drooling and throwing herself on the floor, banging her head on the walls, scratching herself, pulling her hair out. It was bad. It was bad.

It was bad. When we talk about how disturbing it is, when Trinity told us about one of her suicide attempts that led her to hospital, and police came to take photographs of the self-harmion inflicted, it was from neck to toe, she was covered in cuts and in different, like, initials. So disturbing when you think about what a young person has done to themselves under the manipulation of people who really are doing it for their own gratification and nothing else.

But what has evolved with 7-6-4 and what was the newer angle that we were pursuing with our latest investigation was how it has moved from that horrific exploitation of vulnerable minors to pushing those minors and other members to commit acts of public harm. And that is where the terrorism designation that you mentioned comes in. And that is what informed authorities here in Canada to be the first in the world to designate 764 as a terrorist group. And to say more about that for me, like what kind of public harm? Like, why the evolution?

Well, there are no known cases here of foiling. a plot to commit an act of public harm. And when we think about that, when we talk to the experts, public harm could be, for example, similar to the Toronto Van Tech in what they have seen in terms of what has happened in other parts of the world, linked to 764 are stabbings, attacks on elderly people, attacks on people who are unhoused. So basically targeting vulnerable people deliberately because that is what is considered, you know, another form of clout, if you will. Having individuals who are already active in the criminal space are prime recruits for these groups because it's not someone who's going to sit behind a keyboard and do nothing.

If you've been in this space for two years and you've been sextorting victims, you don't get the same high, you don't get the same clout. So you have to evolve into something more violent and more criminal. The other attacks that we know about in the UK that have been foiled involved, attacks on people in the community. There was also a school shooting in Nashville that was linked to 764. So there have been multiple incidents that have been publicly kind of reported on. There are others that it's much harder to get information about because most of the members of 764 are minors themselves.

We do know from groups that we spoke to that they end up being directed towards deradically or de-escalation kind of programs to kind of help them rehabilitate, if you will, because of their age. But that means that we don't really have a clear picture. All we know for sure is that the number of cases is on the rise and that the threat is evolving and that the public safety angle is one that authorities are really focusing in on. When you're leading a business, you're always thinking about doing more. At BDO Canada, we work with business leaders to do more by truly understanding what matters most. to you. Your challenges, your ambitions, your version of more. Whatever your more is, BDO is a true partner to help you get there. After all, do is in our name. Find out more at BDO.ca. BDO, do more together. The following is paid content for Desjardin. Lately, it feels like everyone has a take on Gen Z.

There's a misconception that everybody in our generation wants things handed to them, which is so unfair. circumstances that other generations got to have, we simply do not have. So when Dissuredan asked me to go out and hear directly from young people, I was all in. Because between sky high rent, $10 lottes and the AI revolution got a lot to impact. We went out to see what Gen Z's reality actually looks like and we made a web series out of it. It'll be on CBC Gem. It's called Countess In and honestly I think you guys are going to love it. You mentioned before that the recruitment is coming from other platforms.

Like what are we talking about here? Are these kids being found on like social platforms, Roblox? Yeah, it's exactly that. Many of the platforms that are basically where these recruiters go, groups will be created that are geared towards people who are vulnerable. So it might be a group for eating disorders. It might be a group for kids struggling in school. It might be a group for kids who are neurodivergent.

And they're invited in as a way as if it's a safe space for them to go. Once in there, that's how they get groomed into private chat rooms on telegram most often and Discord. And that is where the grooming really begins. And it is striking how quick that happens. Because in Trinity's case, as we mentioned, there is this element of support initially, of so-called love bombing. And very, very quickly, that becomes, send me a picture. Then using those sexually explicit images to blackmail more. And then the exploitation continues and deepens.

I want to pause for a second because I think maybe as a parent, a parent might be listening to some of what you were just saying there and thinking to themselves, well, like, maybe I thought my kid was safe in this one specific chat group that might be like supporting them. Another reason why this story is so disturbing is that what we're seeing is children becoming both victim and also perpetrator within it. And just how is that happening? You hit on an important point, and I think it's really relevant to parents everywhere. One is that it really underscores the need to be vigilant with children on platforms, especially in private chat rooms, because there's just no way to really understand what's going on there. What struck me in the course of our investigations was an RCMP officer in Alberta, what he said really stayed with me as a parent as well, was that many parents or people in the community think, oh, well, this child was already trium. This child was already vulnerable. But he said any kid can be vulnerable at any given moment.

Like somebody comes, you know, you come home and your child tells you about being bullied that day or being, you know, kind of shut out from a circle of friends that they thought were they were part of. He said it doesn't take much for a kid, especially in those really formative years when school can be such a tough place to, you know, have a bad day or a bad week or a bad month and become vulnerable. So I think that part stayed with me. And that's the part where they really, really underscore being vigilant and being aware of your child's time online, how their behavior might be changing, how their own kind of interactions with you might be changing. Just on Trinity, she reported what was happening to her to the RCMP back in 2021, right? She went so far as to give the police her devices, which had all sorts of information on them. And then essentially nothing happened for years. How is that even possible?

I think in Trinity's case, and this is how the RCMP explained it, and to a certain extent it does make sense, they did not know what they were dealing with. It was in 2021. She reported it to a smaller RCMP detachment in a smaller town in Alberta. The RCMP slash ICE had called me in between that period and asked me for Trinity's Apple ID.

Trinity didn't remember Apple ID. The other thing that this group would convince these kids to do is constant new emails, different Apple IDs. She was constantly changing. So they said that they needed her Apple ID to be able to log in to get information. And they returned the devices because they could not find any evidence. That was flabbergasted. Like you guys specialize in this.

This is, there's no way that you couldn't break into a child's phone. So they returned the devices. Case closed? Yeah. And I mean, the evidence of her body should have been evidence enough. I think in Trinity's case, part of what happened with her story was that they might have characterized this as a young person who was already having trouble in terms of mental health, struggles, self-harm. And somehow, you know, this cult-like story of an online network, you know, victimizing her, it just did not land. They just didn't compute.

And when we interviewed the RCMP for the story, the RCMP officer we spoke to as part of INSET, which is the terrorism investigative unit of the RCMP. And he said back then it would be very hard for anybody to know what they were dealing with. And even now, they're much more on top of it. But even now, when we were initially doing our stories, they really did not seem to have a grasp of what this was about. And frankly, it was still emerging to be fair. but it does kind of underscore that in Trinity's case, the RC&P only really got involved again

after American police started to investigate her case because they had arrested one of her perpetrators in North Carolina. And that's how it all kind of came full circle back to Trinity. That's when the RCMP got involved, when the FBI came to speak to her about that. So now we have this case from this week, as a 17-year-old in Lethbridge now facing these charges. that we went through at the beginning of this episode.

This is five years after Trinity first went to police after the arrests of alleged leaders. And also, we should say that this group has been designated as a terrorist entity last year. What, if anything, does this case tell you about where the network is today? I think it tells me more about how police are dealing with it. The network itself is growing by all accounts.

And it is evolving into sub-examined. groups that we've talked about and offshoots and affiliate networks and has growing evidence of influence from even more extremist groups that issue kill guides and manuals on how to conduct a mass event of public harm. So certainly the threat has been evolving and the fact that authorities here are taking it very seriously is an indication of how that threat is deepening as we speak. The RCMP will not give any statistics, but they do acknowledge that there's a rising cases. They've acknowledged also that the perpetrators are getting younger, which is interesting, and that the victims themselves remain in large part, young children and minors. So I think

the Lethbridge arrest and the laying of terrorist charges is an example of using that designation to push for more investigations, easier access to electronics, for example. And I would not be surprised if part of that or another future arrests involves, you know, mandatory de-escalation training so that hopefully some of these perpetrators are put on a more decent track. Just finally, we've been talking a lot about police responsibility here, but these networks are also operating on commercial platforms here, Discord, Roblox. What responsibility do these companies have, and in your reporting, where have you seen them succeed or fail? We haven't had any satisfactory answers from the companies.

We reached out to all the ones involved when we were first doing this piece and in further investigations. They do talk about safety protocols and that they take down a lot of images that are considered child sexual abuse material. They do flag them to the authorities. And they certainly do all that. but the fact that these groups are not only growing but evolving and becoming more dangerous speaks to the failures of the guardrails that are in place. And right now, the jurisdictions too that you talked about victims being in one place, perpetrators being all over the world, brings its own complexity to these investigations and also makes it much more difficult to find resolutions more quickly, if you will. But we have heard from authorities here and abroad that that cooperation has been increasing and things are streamlining for a little.

long time. The FBI was the lead on most of the global investigations. There seems to be more of a diffusion of responsibilities, if you will, on the RCMP is certainly moving more on these investigations and moving more quickly, I would add. Yohanna, thank you so much for this. Really, really appreciate it. You're very welcome. Thank you. That is all for today. Front burner was produced this week by Joythe Schengupta, Kevin Sexton, Sam McNulty, Mitchell Stewart, Matt Omhaw, and McKenzie, Cameron. Our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our music is by Joseph Shabbison. Our senior producer is

Imogen Burchard. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locose. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.