(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has indicted a former Navy petty officer 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.
For much of the past year, federal authorities have been issuing similar warnings about online predators operating much like “Greggy’s Cult,” especially members of the online extremist network 764, who often extort young victims into self-harm but also desensitize them with neo-Nazi or other extremist propaganda and push victims to commit extreme acts of violence against others, including mass shootings.
Members of “Greggy’s Cult” became “prominent members of 764,” the Justice Department said on Tuesday.
The 764 network was started in late 2020 or early 2021 by Bradley Cadenhead, a 15-year-old in Stephenville, Texas, who named it after the first three digits of his local ZIP code. He later pleaded guilty to child pornography-related charges and is serving an 80-year prison sentence in a Texas state prison.
In the midst of his case, Cadenhead told a clinical psychologist that after starting 764 he emulated “Greggy’s Cult” because it received so much media attention for blackmailing people into self-harm, but that 764 was meant to “take it to a whole different level … a lot worse,” according to court documents filed in the case.
Since then, according to authorities, 764 has grown into more of an ideology than a singular group, inspiring offshoots and subgroups around the world that mirror 764 but use different names to help keep social media companies and law enforcement from tracking them.
Testifying to a Senate panel in September, FBI Director Kash Patel described 764 as “modern day terrorism in America.”
As ABC News has previously reported, the FBI is conducting more than 350 investigations across the United States tied to 764 and similar networks. Even before the latest indictment, the Justice Department had publicly charged at least 30 people in recent years with suspected ties to 764 or affiliated networks.
Two of those previously charged were Valdez and Dosch, who were both named in the indictment unsealed in New York on Tuesday.
Valdez was first arrested by the FBI in May on separate charges filed in Hawaii, where he had been serving as a petty officer at a Naval station in Wahiawa. He recently pleaded guilty to one child pornography-related charge in that case, but he is now facing new charges.
Dosch was first arrested by federal authorities in June 2021 on separate charges filed in New Mexico. A year later, he pleaded guilty to cyberstalking and child pornography-related charges, admitting in court that he coerced minors online into self-harm and sexual activity, and he was released pending sentencing.
However, as of Tuesday — three years later — Dosch had yet to be sentenced in that case. It’s unclear why his sentencing never happened.
But charging documents filed against Valdez in May said that an unnamed member of an online group — identified to ABC News as “Greggy’s Cult” — had provided the FBI with information about the conduct of Valdez and others on Discord.
An attorney representing Dosch declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
In a recent statement to ABC News, a Discord representative said the service is “committed to user safety” and that the “horrific actions of groups like this have no place on Discord or anywhere in society.”
According to a Discord spokesperson, the platform invests “heavily” in specialized teams and newly-developed artificial intelligence tools that can “disrupt these networks, remove violative content, and take action against bad actors on our platform.” Discord also said it shares intelligence with other platforms, which can help identify bad actors even before Discord has spotted them.
Discord also said it cooperates with law enforcement, proactively providing tips and other information to them, and quickly responds to subpoenas.
According to court documents, Discord’s tips have led to many arrests, including the arrest of Cadenhead, the Texas teen who started 764, and Dosch’s initial arrest in 2021.
Dosch and the other four men charged in the latest indictment will appear in federal court in New York at a later date, according to the Justice Department.
Attorneys for Valdez, Bermudez and Rodriguez did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News. As of Wednesday morning, it was unclear if Brilhante had been assigned an attorney.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
