The Com

The Com recruits new members by communicating with them on social media and gaming sites and indoctrinating them into joining. Multiple leaders of The Com have been revealed to also be members of 764, a neo-Nazi child exploitation network. Other members of the network have been responsible for serious crimes like kidnappings or acts of torture. The FBI warned the public of The Com on July 23, 2025, and said that their crimes are motivated for various reasons that include financial gain, revenge, sexual gratification, attention, or ideology.

Characteristics and crimes

The Com is a hidden social network for current and future cybercriminals. According to Internet extremism researcher Marc-André Argentino, The Com now acts like a network of violent and extremist groups on the internet. Groups like 764, No Lives Matter, Maniacs Murder Cult and Satanic Front are members of The Com and chat with each other using various messaging apps.

The recruiting process usually starts with The Com members starting a relationship with the victim, sending them kind and romantic messages. Once the victim trusts the member, they gradually start to coerce the victim to share private information. After the victim shares the material, The Com starts to blackmail them into sending violent material, for example videos of the victim hurting strangers, their family, or themselves. The Com mostly uses Discord, Telegram, Roblox, Minecraft, Twitch and Steam to recruit victims. According to the RCMP, victims have been forced to cut their wrists, harm their pets, take photos of themselves placing notes on dead animals or on their wounds, or write words on the walls using their own blood. If the victim refuses The Com's commands, they are threatened with being swatted, their family harmed, or having photos leaked to relatives and other people.

The Com is split into multiple branches. The first branch, known as "Hacker Com" (formerly "Cyber Com") is responsible for committing cybercrimes like swatting, data theft and creating ransomware. "Sextortion Com" is responsible for recruiting new members to The Com by using sextortion and collecting personal information of contactees with the intention to dox them. Members of this branch mainly indoctrinate underage people to commit self-harm, send sexual images of themselves and spread gore videos and child pornography in the name of The Com.

The third branch, known as "Offline Com" or "IRL Com", has been held responsible for crimes ranging from vandalism to arson, unprovoked attacks on strangers, stabbings, and other acts of terrorism worldwide. Members of Offline Com include satanic, national socialist and accelerationist groups, as well as true crime enthusiasts and followers of school shooters. 764 is the biggest and most influential group within Offline Com, responsible for a majority of the crimes.

According to the National Crime Agency, the number of crimes committed by The Com increased by a factor of four between 2022 and 2024. The FBI reported in July 2025 that members of The Com use sophisticated methods to hide their identity online while committing money laundering and making transactions. They also said that The Com intentionally hires underage Americans because they are punished more leniently by the criminal justice system.

The members of the branches usually have shared interests, ideologies or other reasons to work together in order to achieve their goals.

The Com is connected to a group of skinheads active in Russia and Ukraine responsible for random attacks on people and acts of murder. Edward Coristine, a high-ranking employee of the DOGE, US government organization, was a former member of The Com.

Notable activities

Riley Williams, a female member of The Com, is a well-known participant of the January 6 US Capitol attack in 2021. She was responsible for stealing Nancy Pelosi's laptop with the intention to sell it to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service. She bragged about the crime in an affiliated Discord server and admitted of stealing other items. Williams was later arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. She was released early as a result of Donald Trump's blanket pardon of attack participants.

The Com has conducted cyber attacks against several high-profile organizations. It attacked HubSpot, Activision, Okta Inc, Doordash, Cloudflare, and Twilio in 2022. In 2023, The Com announced their affiliation with hacker groups BlackCat and ALPHV. The Com then proceeded to attack Reddit, MailChimp, Caesars Entertainment, CoinBase, Clorox, Riot Games, and MGM. MGM said that the attack cost them approximately $100 million.

In August 2024, 18-year old The Com member Veer Chetal stole $243 million worth of bitcoin. The transfer was noticed and they were identified by an independent investigator known by his online nickname ZachXBT. Veer was arrested one month later.