The Com is a hidden
social network for cybercriminals and future criminals. 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 victims shares the material, The Com starts to
blackmail them into sending more violent material, where they film themselves hurting their own family, strangers or themselves. The Com mostly uses
Discord,
Telegram,
Roblox,
Minecraft,
Twitch and
Steam to recruit victims. According to
RCMP, victims have been forced to cut their wrists or their pets, take photos of themselves placing notes on dead animals/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 their photos being 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 indoctrinate mostly
underage people to commit
self-harm, send sexual images of themselves and spread
gore videos and
child pornography in the name of The Com. According to
National Crime Agency, the crimes of The Com have increased 6x times since 2022 to 2024.
FBI said 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 people in US because they are punished more leniently by criminal justice system. The Com is connected to a group of
skinheads active in Russia and Ukraine that was responsible for random attacks on people and acts of murder.
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 the participants in the
January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Com had 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. == Investigations and arrests ==