Brooklyn prosecutors say online cult used gaming platforms to target and exploit children
Published By admin
Members of an online group known as “Greggy’s Cult” traded child pornography and sexually exploited children after meeting them on internet gaming platforms, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged Tuesday.
The group targeted minors from 2020 to 2021 in a number of servers on Discord, an online communication platform popular with video gamers, according to the indictment against them. The five accused men, including a 29-year-old from Queens, found their victims on Discord servers and other gaming platforms, including “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive,” according to the charges filed Tuesday.
They are each charged with participating in a child exploitation enterprise, according to the indictment. The group formed prior to the founding of another, similar extortion network known as 764. Prominent members of 764 were also first members of Greggy’s Cult, according to prosecutors.
As part of the crime, members of Greggy’s Cult directed children to do sexual things in video group chats on Discord and other platforms, according to the indictment. They then captured screenshots of the acts and shared it among themselves, according to the indictment. The youngest victim was 11 years old, according to federal prosecutors.
In addition to the sexual exploitation, they directed some of their victims to write the names of group members on their bodies and told them to profess to being “owned” by a member of the cult, according to the court documents filed by prosecutors.
Read more https://gothamist.com/news/brooklyn-prosecutors-say-online-cult-used-gaming-platforms-to-target-and-exploit-children
Content retrieved from: https://gothamist.com/news/brooklyn-prosecutors-say-online-cult-used-gaming-platforms-to-target-and-exploit-children.
