Background
CVLT was created sometime in 2019 by a then 23-year old top business school student named Rohan Rane, an Indian immigrant living in Antibes, France. Reportedly, he was bored due to COVID-19 lockdown so he decided to create his own community on Discord to chat with people, he named it CVLT. Rohan said that the community was a "place where he came to proclaim his hatred of Jews and Muslims", the members of CVLT mostly had neo-nazi and fascist ideologies. CVLT amassed over 150 members, some were not able to be identified by FBI during the investigation. [7] Rohan entered France in 2016 for business studies, he was a son of a rich family, with his father being a CEO of a business. An FBI agent got interested in CVLT in the spring of 2020 as he was investigating a 15-year-old American girl who unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide by slashing her throat after communicating with Rohan. It was revealed to him that the girl sent Rohan nude photos of herself after he formed a romantic relationship with her and gained her trust. After he had the photos, Rohan blackmailed her to send him more and if she didn't obey him, he threatened to send the photos to the girl's relatives. The agent sent his findings to French law enforcement, which prompted a judicial investigation on October 6, 2020 by OCRVP. Rohan was taken into custody the next year, on April 6, 2021, and is awaiting his sentence in solitary confinement. [13] [14] He turned 28-years old as of 2025 and is charged with "acts of torture and barbarity", "corruption of minors in an organized gang" and "extortion in an organized gang". [15]
When Rohan was arrested, the police searched his home, they discovered more than a dozen videos of his victims on his phone and computer. The recordings showed young girls between the ages of 11 and 16, filming themselves doing acts of self harm. Their acts included cutting themselves, strangling themselves with belts and drinking bleach while crying. While in custody, Rohan described himself as a "psychopath devoid of any emotion", he said that he is interested in Fascism and Aryan Brotherhood. He also said that he felt excited by seeing "blood and violence" of his victims. Le Figaro reported that Rohan authored a guide titled: "How to Get a Girl", in the guide, he described himself as a guru and bragged about attracting dozens of young girls. The guide explained his ways of attracting them, it said that he threatened to ruin the lives of his "prey" and forced them to mutilate themselves by shoving blunt objects into their private areas, commit suicide or to eat feces . Rohan also said that all "western feminists" have rape fantasies. [16] [17] Rohan was permitted access to his phone during his incarceration, which he used to continue his activities. In an interview with investigators, Rohan defended himself by saying that all of the girls filmed were adults who performed the actions willingly and that everything they did was staged, including their expressions of pain. [18] He also confessed to targeting girls of Jewish and Muslim origin, as well as "feminists who denounced Hitler or Mussolini". [19]
Organization
In a Reddit post before he was caught, Rohan described CVLT as “dark and sadistic”, he said that he made his "slaves" cut his name on their bodies and that everything he does is "legal", he added that the "ultimate goal" of CVLT is to "create an endless supply of masochistic people to satisfy my sadism and my cult is existing for that very reason”. [20] [21] Two men, Colin Walker and Kaleb Merritt acted as leaders of CVLT, they were responsible for hosting and maintaining CVLT's online servers and controlling its membership. Both of them were arrested and charged with one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise in 2025. [4] Kaleb Merritt was also one of the first CVLT's members and its prominent child groomer, he used online nicknames "eterrorist", "o9a", and "evil". One of CVLT's affiliated groups, led by Bradley Cadenhead, broke off and became known as 764. Before creating 764, Cadenhead produced child exploitation videos of him mutilating himself or committing animal abuse, his online name was known as "brad764", "felix" and "felix764" in the CVLT community. Some groups that broke off from CVLT have neo-nazi and accelerationist ideologies, mimicking the style of Terrorgram network. AAST is one of CVLT's neo-nazi splinter groups, some of the group's members reportedly took part in Russian invasion of Ukraine on the side of Russia and post about in on Telegram. [20] [22] According to Grey Dynamics, both CVLT and 764 are successors of even older organization, Order of Nine Angles, and share its ideology (neo-Nazism, satanism and western esotericism). [12]
Rohan used Instagram and other social medias to promote CVLT, including Roblox. After the victim joined the community, he manipulated them into sending sexual photos of themselves before using them to blackmail them. [20] [23] CVLT targeted mostly vulnerable children and made them watch NSFW videos to desensitize them to violence and sadism, [24] the examples included animals being tortured to death or women being raped on camera. [25] Rohan's demands to the girls he blackmailed included requests to cut his name or Nazi swastikas on their skin, masturbate using knifes, drink bleach or eat their own hair, if they didn't comply, he promised the victims to reveal the photos to their relatives, sometimes CVLT would carry out the threats. All of the acts were recorded on webcams and broadcast live on CVLT Discord server. [14] [26] Other acts included victims punching themselves, calling themselves racial slurs and in extreme cases CVLT members swatting them or making them commit suicide on livestreams. [27] [21] According to a prosecutor, other unnamed suspects may have participated in CVLT's activities. [24]
Throughout its history, the organization managed to sextort approximately 16 children around the world, including two children living in San Bernardino County, California. [28] [9] The countries where victims of Rohan lived included Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand, and Estonia. [18] Martín Estrada, former prosecutor in California, said that there may be hundreds more unidentified victims based on the amount of child porn videos CVLT made. [21] Police said that the victims were known to have a history of sexual abuse-induced trauma or mental health issues. CVLT was a member of The Com, an international cybercriminal network made of various groups, extremist groups of The Com are known to carry out similar crimes. CVLT was described by law enforcement as a neo-Nazi group, however, an unnamed cyber security expert quoted by Rolling Stone , said that the group only used it for shock value and to look more provocative while not genuinely believing in Nazism. [29] [30]
