DOJ charges former Navy sailor, 4 others for alleged roles in ‘monstrous’ online extortion group
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The Justice Department has indicted a former Navy sailor and four others for allegedly leading an online extortion group that authorities say later helped spawn the global extremist network known as “764,” which the FBI now describes as “modern day terrorism” for its sadistic and violent tormenting of teens online.
An indictment unsealed Tuesday alleges that the earlier group, calling themselves “Greggy’s Cult,” engaged in a criminal enterprise that pushed young victims they found online to create child pornography, and then blackmailed them into engaging in self-harm, “masochistic abuse,” and other extreme “acts of degradation” — live on camera — simply for “the enjoyment of members of the Enterprise.”
Between January 2020 and January 2021, members of the group allegedly worked together “to find and recruit minor victims on Discord or online gaming platforms,” and even urged victims as young as 11 to abuse their siblings and to kill themselves, telling one minor victim to overdose on medication or hang themself from a ceiling fan, the indictment alleges.
Members of “Greggy’s Cult” would host sexually explicit “live events” with victims on Discord and record the sessions, using those recordings to then blackmail victims into engaging in even more extreme acts, according to the indictment.
The indictment charges 22-year-old Camden Rodriguez of Longmont, Colorado; 22-year-old Rumaldo Valdez of Honolulu, Hawaii; 26-year-old Zachary Dosch of Albuquerque, New Mexico; 28-year-old David Brilhante of San Diego, California; and 29-year-old Hector Bermudez of New York with a total of 10 counts related to engaging in a child exploitation enterprise, producing child pornography, and making threats across state lines. Not all five men face all 10 counts.
They were arrested on Tuesday throughout the United States, according to the Justice Department.
The top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, where the indictment was filed, called their alleged conduct “depraved” and “monstrous.”
“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,” the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella Jr., said in a statement.
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