The Director General of the National Crime Agency has warned of a “deeply concerning” trend of online networks of predominantly teenage boys dedicated to inflicting harm and committing a range of criminality.
Graeme Biggar is calling on everyone – from law enforcement to parents and carers, education professionals, and industry – to play their part in reducing the risk from “sadistic and violent online gangs”.
The warning comes as the NCA launches its National Strategic Assessment, an annual report that outlines the serious and organised crime threats facing the UK.
These online forums or communities – referred to in the Assessment as “Com networks” – see offenders collaborate or compete to cause harm across a broad spectrum of criminality – both on and offline – including cyber, fraud, extremism, serious violence, and child sexual abuse.
Known reports of this emerging threat increased sixfold in the UK from 2022 to 2024. NCA analysts estimate that thousands of users – offenders and victims – based in the UK and other Western countries have exchanged millions of messages online relating to sexual and physical abuse.
Although adults are involved in these online communities, of particular concern is that offenders are predominantly teenage boys who often share sadistic and misogynistic material and have been seen to target those their own age or younger.
Offenders include a new generation of young, English-speaking cyber criminals who work together to execute data breaches and commit fraud, launch malware or ransomware attacks, and use social engineering and grooming techniques on victims.
The NCA and UK law enforcement have identified a number of cases in which girls, some as young as 11, have been coerced into seriously harming or sexually abusing themselves, siblings or pets.
In some instances, victims have been groomed into offending themselves.
The online landscape of these networks is vast, with many groups having different focuses, such as cybercrime or inflicting physical harm. However, membership is loose and fluid, leading to a range of different criminalities committed by individual offenders.
Last month, following an NCA investigation, Richard Ehiemere was convicted of fraud and indecent images of children offences committed when he was just 17 and linked to a prolific online harms group.
In January, 19-year-old Cameron Finnigan was jailed for assisting suicide, possession of IIOC, a terror offence, and criminal damage, following an investigation by Counter Terror Policing South East.
Evidence suggests that offenders are motivated by gaining notoriety and status, which can be achieved based on the harm they inflict and the depravity of the content they share. These networks share content relating to a broad and diverse range of extreme belief systems that they use to justify violence.
Sexual gratification can also be a motivating factor, and in some cases, offenders are finding opportunities to profit from their criminality directly or by selling material to others. The NCA is engaging with experts and academics to improve our understanding of the motivations of offenders in this area and what can be done to deter them.
Also common across networks is the use of coercion and extortion tactics. Offenders manipulate victims by grooming them or convincing them that they are in a relationship. As with other types of grooming, this leads to victims not recognising themselves as such or being too scared to come forward, which likely contributes to the underreporting of this offending.
