After a Macomb County teen was arrested and federally charged centered around child pornography and graphic animal torturing videos, questions have been circulating about the group he was allegedly associated with.
Jolyan Raeed Zahrah, 18, is accused of having multiple Discord accounts and using them to distribute child pornography and animal torture videos on various Discord servers. FBI agents said he was part of 764-related activity.
Read more on the case here --> Macomb County teen accused of posting child porn, graphic animal torture videos
Local 4’s Erika Erickson sat down with an FBI employee in an exclusive interview to explain the organization that is believed to be associated with the 18-year-old.
The FBI employee’s identity is not being released.
What is the 764 network?
The FBI employee said the 764 network is one of several violent online networks that engage in a variety of criminal activity online, primarily focused on extorting the most vulnerable populations including children.
764 members will typically go into online chat forums, social media platforms, gaming platforms, find their victims, befriend them and earn their trust to a point where they are convinced to share sexually explicit mater of themselves or other acts of criminal activity, including harming family pets in order to keep the trust of the person they met online.
The employee said 764 members tend to blackmail the victims in exchange for more content.
“There’s an escalation in behavior when we’re talking about these network members to the point where these kids want to remain friends or now feel backed into a corner. So they will produce the content at the request of their victimizer.”
The FBI employee said a lot of the criminal activity that happens can vary depending on the types of violent networks.
The FBI has seen from the member of these violent networks has been coercing victims into committing crimes such as swatting, doxing, vandalism, acts of self-harm, sexual exploitation or even murder.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, 764 was founded by a then-15-year-old from Stephenville, Texas. The numbers come from the first three digits of Stephenville’s ZIP codes: 76401 and 76402.
What’s the goal of this network?
The FBI employee said the motivation for each member is personalized.
“It can be a personalized grievance, it can be a collective grievance, but basically, it varies group by group,” they said. “These members find each other based off of shared grievances or shared content preferences. The goal, ultimately, for a lot of these groups is prominence within the network or clout. The more extreme the content, the more notoriety you gain in these spaces. A lot of these threat actors are looking for a space to belong when they join these communities, so feeling that acceptance by other people, engaging in the same type of behavior, can be a pretty big motivator for these threat actors.”
How are 764 members desensitizing youth?
“The desensitization process includes a lot of things like gore bombing, which is a tactic some of these groups will use where they’ll share really extreme videos of GIFs or pictures of gore to include human gore or animal crushing in order to desensitize their victims to ideally have them engage in that activity down the road.”
What is animal crushing?
“Animal crushing is basically defined as intentional harm, impaling, burning or torture of a live animal.”
The FBI employee said sending videos, images or GIFs of animal crushing falls under the federal statute.
Where does the FBI see these groups active?
According to the FBI employee, the agency sees these groups active anywhere that has some sort of communication function.
“Most predominantly, these threat actors are kind of congregating where they think they can find victims,” they said. “So, spaces that younger populations are frequenting. This includes social media platforms, gaming platforms, online forums — truly, anything that has a chat function.”
What is the demographic for the members in the 764 network?
The FBI employee said they typically are men under 25 years old.
“But, we have seen perpetrators of all ages, of all genders, of all socioeconomic backgrounds, of all ethnicities. There’s a trend of the under 25, but it can be anybody.”
When it comes to victims, the employee said they are typically underage girls, but anyone can be a victim to these types of networks.
Previous case connected to 764
Richard Dinsmore was one of the more active members of 764. He was recently sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for the sexual exploitation of a girl.
“He had a pretty significant online presence, and his activity in the group definitely drew our attention to the problem here in Michigan, specifically.”
Read more about the case here --> ‘Depraved’ Michigan man sentenced for sexually exploiting children
What kinds of branches of the FBI are involved with this and how has it ramped up in the last few years?
“These cases, as they relate to 764 and associated networks, are looked at on a case-by-case basis. In instances where these threat actors are committing these acts to further a sociopolitical goal, they are being investigated through the counterterrorism lens here at the FBI.
Not all members engage in this type of activity or join these groups with an ideology in mind and purely engage in this behavior for either sexual gratification, notoriety, a sense of belonging. Those cases are typically investigated as criminal cases. It really is a case-by-case basis depending on the threat actor themselves.”
This isn’t just a Michigan issue, a national issue — this is a global issue. How difficult is this to tackle?
“Just given the nature of the internet and how global that is as a resource, we see this activity, both victims and subjects, across the world. We’re in lockstep with our international partners in combating this issue. We are constantly collaborating with them to identify and disrupt these networks, sharing information appropriately in order to make sure that these individuals are held legally responsible for the crime that they are committing.”
“People always think, ‘Oh, it’s just on the dark web.’ That is not true. This is on the very real internet that you have in your home.”
“These threat actors will basically infiltrate these spaces and pretend to befriend their children victims. In some cases, we’ve seen them pretend to be like a similarly aged individual in order to gain the trust of their victim.”
“After gaining the trust of their victims, they will request photos and videos of these kids performing either sexually explicit acts or harm against family pets to exert more control over these populations. These threat actors will then take these pictures and videos that have been provided by the victims and make them into compilations and then share those within their networks in order to gain notoriety within their own network. It’s very content-driven threat activity that we’re talking about.”
The FBI’s Guidance to Parents and Caregivers
The Bureau urges parents to use parental controls on apps and devices, talk with children about sharing images, and monitor direct messaging with strangers.
They also provided warning signs to watch out for in children who may be involved with someone dangerous online or struggling with self-harm:
- Sudden changes in behavior, becoming withdrawn, moody, or irritable
- Neglect of appearance, sudden changes in grooming
- Sleep or appetite changes
- Isolating or dropping out of normal activities
- A new online “friend” that your child is either fixated on—or afraid of
- Receiving unexplained gifts (cash, gaming currency, or items via delivery)
- Visible injuries: cuts, bruises, scratches, burns, bite marks• Wearing long clothing to cover wounds, even in hot weather
- Carvings or drawings on the skin
- Talking or writing about death, not being wanted, or feeling useless
- Idealizing mass shootings or violent acts
- Pets being harmed—or showing fear of someone in the household
- Police being called to the home falsely (swatting or doxxing incidents)
“Although seemingly innocuous when posted or shared, images and videos can provide malicious actors an abundant supply of content to exploit and manipulate,” the FBI stated.
Federal investigators encourage families to limit what is shared publicly online —especially images or information about children. Even basic content can be used, altered, or repurposed by these groups for exploitation.
What You Can Do
If you believe someone is in danger, or that a crime has occurred, authorities recommend the following:
- In an emergency, always dial 911
- Report online abuse or suspicious behavior to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3): www.ic3.gov
- Contact your local FBI Field Office: www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices or call 1-800-CALL-FBI
- File a report with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: www.cybertipline.org or 1-800-THE-LOST
For minors—or even adults—looking to have explicit images removed from the internet, the FBI recommends visiting https://takeitdown.ncmec.org, a free service operated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The full story on the 764 network will air on July 17 at 5:45 p.m.