The Online Network the FBI Calls Terrorism
A San Antonio man who helped run an online group that coerced children into self-harm and sexual abuse was sentenced in July 2026 to 40 years in prison, one of the stiffest penalties yet in a widening U.S. crackdown. Federal authorities describe the network he was tied to, known as 764, as a form of online extremism that treats the abuse of minors as a path to status.
A San Antonio man who helped lead an online network that coerced children into sexual abuse and self-harm has been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison. Alexis Aldair Chavez, 19, who used the aliases “Zack” and “Zack8884,” was an administrator of a group called 8884, an offshoot of the online extremist network known as 764, and was sentenced on July 8 to four decades in prison followed by lifetime supervised release and ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Chavez was arrested in October 2024 and pleaded guilty in December 2025 to racketeering, distribution of child sexual abuse material and possession of such material, the department said. Prosecutors said members of 8884 and 764 pursue accelerationist aims of social unrest and the collapse of government, working to destroy civilized society through the “corruption and exploitation of vulnerable populations, including minors,” according to the Justice Department.
The case is one of scores the F.B.I. has pursued against 764, a decentralized online movement that law-enforcement officials have come to describe as a form of domestic terrorism. By early 2026 the bureau was investigating hundreds of people tied to 764 and related networks, with every one of its field offices involved, CNN reported, citing internal documents.
How the network operates
The networks typically find victims on mainstream gaming and messaging platforms, then groom them over weeks or months before turning to threats and blackmail, according to NBC News. Children are pressured into producing sexual images, harming themselves, hurting animals, or carving names and symbols into their skin — content that raises a member's standing within the group, CNN reported.
In one Arizona case, prosecutors accused a man tied to 764 of directing a 13-year-old girl to carve swastikas into her body, NBC News reported. Investigators and child-safety researchers say the coercion can escalate to demands that victims livestream acts of self-harm, according to NPR.
A widening federal crackdown
In April 2026, federal prosecutors announced charges against two men described as leaders of 764: Leonidas Varagiannis, known online as “War,” a U.S. citizen living in Greece, and Prasan Nepal, known as “Trippy,” of North Carolina, according to the Justice Department and CBS News. The two are accused of running a global child-exploitation enterprise that abused at least eight minors, some as young as 13, prosecutors said.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi called it one of the most heinous online child-exploitation enterprises federal authorities had encountered, describing it as a network built on terror, abuse and the deliberate targeting of children, according to the Justice Department. The F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, has publicly described such crimes as a new form of “modern-day terrorism” aimed at children, NBC News reported.
Governments move to designate it
In December 2025, Canada became the first country to add 764 to its list of terrorist entities under the Criminal Code, alongside two other online extremist groups, its government said. Officials described 764 as a “transnational ideologically motivated violent extremist” network that uses social media and gaming platforms “to lure, groom and extort youth to commit violent and sexual acts, including self-harm,” according to Public Safety Canada. In the United States, the F.B.I. has treated 764-related cases as a top investigative priority, CNN reported.
A harm that regenerates online
Researchers who track the networks say their reach is sustained by the same features that serve everyone else: private messaging, disappearing content and communities built around games and apps popular with children, as documented by NBC News. Investigators and child-safety groups have urged parents to pay closer attention to the chat servers and games young people use, and platforms to detect grooming earlier, warning that arrests alone have not slowed a movement that re-forms online as fast as members are removed, according to NPR.