“Greggy’s Cult” — the online sextortion crew taken down by the feds this week — was linked to an international neo-Nazi network that has duped kids into horrific sex acts, self-mutilation and even murder, The Post has learned.
The five alleged ringleaders of the twisted group scoured online gaming sites for vulnerable victims as young as 11, terrorizing them into providing sexually explicit videos and marking their bodies to show their loyalty to the creeps, Brooklyn federal prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg, according to the feds and law enforcement sources.
“Greggy’s Cult,” an online sextortion crew busted up this week, is linked to a sick international cult known as “764.” Institute for Countering Digital Extremism
Members of a loosely linked wider network of sickos known as “764” — a perverted crew of online predators founded by then-15-year-old Texas dropout Bradley Cadenhead in 2020 — were also part of the sickening Greggy’s Cult, prosecutors said.
“Greggy’s Cult came into existence before another sadistic extortion network, 764, and prominent members of 764 and other similar networks that followed were also members of Greggy’s Cult,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.
Cadenhead is serving an 80-year federal prison sentence — but others have kept 764 alive.
According to a report by the Anti-Defamation League released in June, 764 is itself an offshoot of the Order of Nine Angels, or O9A, a far-right extremist group blending Satanic and neo-Nazi beliefs.
Federal investigators said “764” and other cults recruit vulnerable youngsters on gaming sites like Roblox. AlexPhotoStock – stock.adobe.com
Victims of 764, typically vulnerable youngsters struggling with their sexuality, eating disorders or mental health issues, are recruited on gaming sites like Roblox and lured into messaging apps like Discord.
That’s where cult members begin to manipulate the fragile children, officials said.
Start your day with all you need to know
Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.
Thanks for signing up!
“Victims are often pressured to engage in increasingly extreme behaviors to test their ‘loyalty’ to their abuser, such as killing family pets or asphyxiating themselves,” the ADL report said. “Self-harm, particularly cutting, is also extremely common among individuals associated with 764.”
According to the report, Cadenhead’s 764 was inspired by another neo-Nazi group, known as the Maniac Murder Cult, or MKY, started in Russia and Ukraine as early as 2017.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch warned earlier this year that too many parents are unaware of cults like “764.” Robert Miller
Participation in the cults often has tragic results — the teenager who opened fire at Antioch High School in Tennessee in January claimed he was carrying out the shooting on behalf of MKY.
Other sick crimes have been linked to victims of 764 and similar groups, including an 18-year-old’s livestreamed stabbing near a mosque in Turkey in August 2024, and an April 2022 attack by a 17-year-old German national living in Romania, who broadcast himself slitting a woman’s throat, the ADL said.
The US Department of Justice has begun to dismantle the elusive cults, including indictments against two alleged 764 ringleaders — Leonidas Varagiannis, an American living in Greece, and North Carolina resident Prasan Nepal — in Washington, DC, in June.
The shooting at Antioch High School in January reportedly was done by a teen tied to a cult. AP
In May, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and the department’s deputy commissioner for intel and counterterrorism, Rebecca Weiner, warned about the online cult in an op-ed in The Post.
“It’s the stuff of nightmares, and dismantling these virulent networks is now a top national security priority across the United States and Europe,” they wrote. “But most parents have no idea they exist.”
Brooklyn federal prosecutors took another bite out of the creepy cults this week.
Five men, including Queens resident Hector Bermudez, 29, were charged with child exploitation, conspiracy to produce child pornography and other raps for leading Greggy’s Cult.
764 is part of a network of online sextortion cults that have led to sex crimes and murder around the globe. Claudia Nass – stock.adobe.com
Bermudez, along with Rumaldo Valez, 22, of Hawaii, Camden Rodriguez, 22, of Colorado, Zachary Dosch, 26, of New Mexico, and David Brilhante, 28, of California, were accused of “depraved conduct such as repeatedly encouraging victims to kill themselves or encouraging them to insert household objects into their genitals or anus,” the feds said.
The cult operated from January 2020 through January 2021 — but several of the ringleaders continued to lure minors online, even after Greggy’s Cult disbanded and the server was scrubbed from Discord, according to prosecutors.
Rodriguez allegedly tried to extort a minor online as recently as April, while prosecutors said Bermudez has tried to enlist at least two minors online in June.
Brilhante is accused of sending child phonography to a victim in September 2024, prosecutors said.
“I strongly urge parents and caregivers to have conversations with their children about the dangers of communicating online with strangers and individuals who seek to cruelly exploit them,” EDNY US Attorney Joseph Nocella said as he announced the indictment.