| Founded | 2010s |
|---|---|
| Named after | Shorthand for "community" |
| Founding location | United States |
| Membership | Thousands |
| Activities | Cybercrime, sextortion, swatting, physical assault |
| Notable members | Edward Coristine |
The Com, also known as The Comm or The Community, [1] is an international online network made of multiple cybercriminal networks [2] that operate in Canada, United States and United Kingdom. The network has committed various cybercrimes that included cryptocurrency theft, violence incitement and swatting. The Com is responsible for data breaches of multiple organizations. [3] Law enforcement said that The Com uses cybercrime tactics like SIM swapping, IP grabbing and social engineering. Parts of The Com have extreme ideological views and are known to sexually groom children. [4] [5]
The network has over 1,000 members, aged 11 to 25. The Com recruits new members by communicating with them on social media and gaming sites and indoctrinating them into joining. Multiple leaders of The Com have been revealed to be members of 764, a satanic neo-nazi child exploitation network. [6] Other members of the network were revealed to be responsible for serious crimes like kidnappings or acts of torture. The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned the public of The Com on July 23, 2025, and said that their crimes are motivated for various reasons that include financial gain, revenge, sexual gratification, attention, or ideology. [7]
The Com is a hidden social network for cybercriminals and future criminals. [8] According to Dr. Argentino, PhD of Concordia University, 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 Com is split into multiple branches, first branch is called "Cyber Com", it is responsible for committing cybercrimes like swatting, data theft and creating ransomwares. The branch is now named as "Hacker Com". "Sextortion Com" is responsible for recruiting new members to The Com by using sextortion and other illegal methods, it collects personal information of the people they communicated 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. [9] [10]
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. [11] The Com mostly uses Discord, Telegram, Roblox, Minecraft, Twitch and Steam to communicate with them. According to RCMP, the victims were 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. [12] Spokesperson of Roblox, Juliet Chaitin-Lefcourt, said that they are aware of The Com's activities and are working to ban them. [13]
The most dangerous branch of the network is called "Offline Com", its responsible for doing real life crimes that range from vandalism by the means of graffiti painting and tire slashing to arson, unprovoked attacks on strangers, stabbings and terrorism. Members of Offline Com are interested in true crime and lives of school shooters. The groups that do these crimes for Offline Com are mostly satanic and have national socialist and accelerationist ideologies. They include Maniacs Murder Cult, No Lives Matter, and parts of 764. 764 is the biggest and most influential group within Offline Com, it is responsible for majority of the crimes. The crimes of The Com are worldwide. [9] [11] This branch is also known as "IRL Com". [10] The members of the branches usually have shared interests, ideologies or other reasons to work together in order to archive their goals. [2] 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. [2] [14]
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. [13] Edward Coristine, a high-ranking employee of the DOGE, US government organization, was a former member of The Com. [15]
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 the network's Discord server and admitted of stealing other items, she was later arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. [16]
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 that they have affiliated themselves with BlackCat and ALPHV, two hacker groups. The Com would then attack Reddit, MailChimp, Caesars Entertainment, CoinBase, Clorox, Riot Games, and MGM. MGM said that the attack costed them approximately $100 million. [17] [18] 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. [8]
The Com was investigated by Allison Nixon in 2011, chief research officer of Unit 221B, a cybersecurity organization. According to her, members The Com were mostly interested in financial crimes till 2020s, when they became interested in other crimes related to violent acts, misogyny and sextortion of children. [8] [19] Nixon said that The Com's crimes are widespread in US, with every state reporting and investigating the network's crimes. She added that sometimes, the police treat these crimes as terrorism resulting in more speedy investigations and arrests. Unit 221B itself later investigated The Com and found that the a hundred to one thousand of its members were responsible for violent crimes. [20]
In 2021, law enforcement agencies of US, UK Germany, Romania, and Brazil launched investigations on about a dozen individuals linked to The Com, US had federally charged several people. In September 2023, FBI issued warnings about the network as part of their investigation on 764. [13] On July and October 2024, multiple suspects affiliated with The Com had committed six assaults against random bystanders Hässelby, Sweden. [21] On January 30, 2025, police in US arrested two people, aged 23 and 41, as part of Interpol investigation of them and Europol crackdown of The Com. The men were members of CVLT, a violent neo-nazi affiliate of The Com that coerced 16 minors to send it porn of themselves and commit self-harm. [22] Also in 2025, a 21-year old British man and member of The Com was arrested for blackmailing underage girls and was convicted of fraud and making indecent images of children. [14]
In July 2025, FBI issued warnings about the network again, specifically its two branches: Hacker Com and IRL Com. FBI recommended for parents or guardians of the children to be more vigilant. [23] [24] At the end of July 2025, 20-year-old from Minnesota and member of The Com affiliate "SR1" was arrested, he allegedly stabbed a woman 20 times in a park. [21] In August 2025, it was reported that children on Roblox were being lured into joining a cult called Spawnism, which is based around an in-game symbol. Victims were reported as carving the symbol into their skin in the belief that it would allow them to respawn after death, like a video game character. The Spawnism cult is believed to be operated by Com groups. [25]