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“My beautiful, kind, intelligent, trusting daughter had the misfortune of stumbling across a link in a Discord server that led her to your evil and cruel group.
“The grooming of her started immediately, and what followed was unimaginably harrowing and traumatic. You were just one of the group members who abused her, who made her do things that no young person should ever be made to do.”
These are the words that came to an Australian mother, Olivia*, as Kyle Spitze was sentenced to 77 years in prison this month in Tennessee – the longest federal sentence yet imposed on what the US government has called a “nihilistic violent extremist”.
Spitze, 27, pleaded guilty to abetting the distribution of animal crushing videos and child sexual exploitation material (CSAM) offences, with victims around the world – some who have still not been identified. His lawyer said he plans to appeal the sentence.
The US Department of Justice said Spitze’s crimes occurred as part of his association with an online network known as “764”, known for its sadistic extortion of young and vulnerable people around the world.
Olivia told the Guardian the early days after she discovered her child’s abuse by these networks were terrifying.
“I had no idea what was happening or what to do, so I just focused on trying to keep my child as physically safe as possible while I tried to figure out what to do next,” she said
The platforms where her daughter had interacted with this network were not the “dark web”. They were apps like Discord, Telegram, Instagram and Snapchat. At the time, local police did not seem able to assist because the offenders were overseas.
Years later, she could not believe it when she heard Spitze had received such a long sentence.
“Pretty soon the tears started as I was flooded with relief, but also as I reflected on how long and hard we’d fought to get to this point,” she said.
Normalising explicit material
In December 2023, the chat platform Discord sent the FBI a 29-page report with a list of accounts it said were involved in “high harm activities”.
The users were, in Discord’s words, engaged in “sextortion, solicitation of minors to perform online sexual acts, self-harm coercion, swatting and conspiring to commit real world acts of violence”. Swatting is when someone calls in a fake threat to provoke an armed police response.
One username was “CRIMINALOLI”, prosecutors said. This was Spitze, then in his early 20s. Earlier that year, others had also sent tips to police alleging he was “grooming minors”.
Police found a video on a Telegram channel he ran that showed minor girls exposing their breasts and bodies, with his moniker sometimes “written in blood or carved on their bodies”.
He demanded one girl kill animals on video. If she hesitated, according to the prosecution, he threatened to dox and swat her and her parents. She was 12 when they met online, and thought she was his girlfriend.
In May, his father was sentenced to nearly six years’ imprisonment for attempted tampering with a victim, including asking her to destroy any evidence. Michael Spitze called the victim, 15, and told her to set up an account to speak to his son in prison, which she did out of fear. Kyle Spitze then called her 51 times.
In court documents, the prosecutor said 764 and similar groups “work in concert” to normalise explicit material to minors and “groom them towards future violence”, creating video records of victims: “Ultimately, these videos are placed on the network servers to gain notoriety and spread fear.”
According to Discord, the company has shared insights about these “harm groups” to law enforcement since it became aware of their activity in 2021.
“Discord is continuing to invest in new ways of detecting these groups, including if they attempt to return to Discord after being removed,” the company said.
Grooming manuals
About one year before authorities received tips about Spitze, in June 2022, a teenager in Australia sent an email to police in Inglewood, California.
The thread was disturbing. She alleged that a man called Dong Hwan Kim had sent her explicit messages, according to the criminal complaint, urging her to show him her body on camera. She said he threatened to send photos and videos of her to her father and even to her work if she did not show him naked imagery again.
The tip-off was one of several that led to a police investigation and in April Kim, who was 27 when he was arrested, pleaded guilty to two counts of producing child sexual exploitation material. He is yet to be sentenced. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
The government says in court records that Kim’s crimes also occurred as part of his association with 764, and that he and his associates ran multiple online forums in which they “enticed, persuaded, and coerced minors” into creating CSAM.
Both US cases, and others currently before the courts, demonstrate the complex global nature of these crimes, with victims and perpetrators spread across borders. There have been a spate of global arrests but these groups and their propaganda continue to spread and change.
Groups such as 764 are understood to be part of the Com – the term for a broad online network that engages in cybercrime, extortion and violence.
This network does not have a traditional organised crime structure; it is decentralised and very fluid. “The other primary difference is that predominantly it involves young people, both as perpetrators and victims,” said AFP cybercrime commander Graeme Marshall.
Sadistic online exploitation as part of these groups can be driven by “gamification”, as well as a means to build status and notoriety. It is this type of Com activity that the AFP observes most often in Australia, although the scale is unclear.
The typical perpetrator, according to the AFP, is a young white male aged between 11 and their early 20s. The victim will often be a young woman in a similar age bracket.
The Guardian has seen Telegram channels that claim to be new iterations of 764, as well as manuals that provide guidance about how to groom and extort young people and where to store files. Court records suggest “content” is often traded, and allegedly used as means of entry to certain closed online spaces.
Marshall said the AFP has worked to increase awareness of the Com from local police, who need to know what questions to ask – and from parents and caregivers, who need to be aware of the warning signs.
“I still find it hard to believe that kids as young as 13 are even involved in these criminal groups, let alone perpetrating crimes,” Marshall said. “So, it’s completely understandable that parents, educators and health professionals would have that type of reaction as well. It is a broader education and awareness piece that is needed.”
Warning signs
The conviction of Spitze and others in 764 and other extortion networks often came off the back of tips from victims, families and their friends, court records show.
Before Spitze was arrested, a video spread online of him being shot in the ear during an altercation with his mother’s partner. He even gave interviews about the incident on YouTube.
This was when Olivia was able to “put a face to the name”.
“I couldn’t believe that he’d exposed himself so publicly, and after that more and more people started speaking out on [social media] about who he really was and what he’d been doing to young girls,” she said.
Olivia believes there is increasing awareness about how serious these groups are “and how easily kids can accidentally end up in contact with a predator”.
Some of the potential warning signs she wants parents to look out for include: increased time on devices, as well as distress and anger if separated from those devices; a child becoming extra secretive or distrusting of those closest to them; self-harm; and, random gifts or deliveries.
Olivia said that in her experience, the most significant thing a parent can do to help a child in this situation is to not blame them and to help them feel safe. “It sounds simple, but unfortunately it’s something that a lot of parents struggle with,” she said.
Today she would tell Spitze that although he was just one of the group members who abused her daughter, this doesn’t absolve him of responsibility for the “wilful destruction of lives that [he] gleefully participated in”.
“We’re doing a lot better, but our lives are forever changed,” she said. “Life is still incredibly difficult most days.”
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In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org
