‘Sadistic gangs of boys share extreme material online that normalises violence’
The loosely connected ‘com networks’ are also involved in crimes as wide-ranging as child abuse and fraud.
“Sadistic” online gangs dominated by teenage boys are committing harrowing crimes, including child abuse and sharing extreme material, that desensitises them to brutal violence, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned.
Reports relating to the so-called “com networks” increased six times in the UK between 2022 and 2024, involving thousands of users and victims.
Some members have already been convicted of crimes in the UK and other investigations are ongoing.
The NCA’s annual National Strategic Assessment, published on Tuesday, described the groups as networks on social media or messaging platforms that “routinely share harmful content and extremist or misogynistic rhetoric”.
It said: “Extreme and illicit imagery depicting violence, gore and child sexual abuse material is frequently shared amongst users, normalising and desensitising participants to increasingly extreme content and behaviours.
“‘Com’ networks use extreme coercion to manipulate their victims, who are often children, into harming or abusing themselves, their siblings or pets, and re-victimising them by doxing or appropriation by other offenders.
“Members of ‘Com’ networks are usually young men who are motivated by status, power, control, misogyny, sexual gratification or an obsession with extreme or violent material.
“The emergence of these types of online platforms are almost certainly causing some individuals, especially younger people, to develop a dangerous propensity for extreme violence.”
Director general of the NCA Graeme Biggar said: “This is a hugely complex and deeply concerning phenomenon.
“Young people are being drawn into these sadistic and violent online gangs where they are collaborating at scale to inflict, or incite others to commit, serious harm.
“These groups are not lurking on the dark web, they exist in the same online world and platforms young people use on a daily basis.
“It is especially concerning to see the impact this is having on young girls who are often groomed into hurting themselves and in some cases, even encouraged to attempt suicide.”
Members of the online networks often want to gain notoriety by inflicting the most harm on their victims or sharing the most disturbing content, while others are paedophiles who sell material to other sex offenders.
Mr Biggar urged parents and carers to speak to children about what they are doing online.
The NCA said some victims may not realise a crime has been committed against them because they have been groomed.
Assistant chief constable Alastair Simpson, national policing lead for child sexual exploitation and abuse, said: “The growth of Com networks that incite and encourage children and vulnerable adults towards acts of self-harm, suicide and violence is hugely concerning.
“The role of undercover online officers is vital in this space, and my message to anyone who is exploiting children online: remember that there is no space where criminals operate that we cannot go and investigations into these networks have already begun.
“Policing will always play its part, but social media providers have a clear role to play in monitoring and regulating their platforms to root out this abhorrent criminal behaviour and make all online spaces safe for children and adults.
“I would encourage anyone who has been a victim of this type of crime to report it to police, you will be met with empathy and respect, and there are organisations that can support you.”
Andy Burrows, chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation, called on the Government and regulator Ofcom to take action over extreme material online.
He said: “These horrendous groups pose a deeply disturbing and sharply growing risk to children, especially teenage girls who are being sadistically groomed into acts of self-harm and even suicide online.
“Despite being repeatedly warned of the threat posed by these groups, Ofcom has failed to introduce a single targeted measure to tackle disturbing suicide and self-harm offences. This glaring gap in its regulatory regime must be closed.
“The Prime Minister must now take decisive action to ensure the Online Safety Act is fit for purpose in the face of new online risks and the threat posed by the fluid ideologies that are fuelling this troubling wave of extreme violence.”
An Ofcom spokesperson said it had set out several measures that platforms can take to protect users from suicide and self-harm content, and additional protections for children are being finalised next month including measures on algorithms and age checks.
Elsewhere, the assessment found that the UK is falling prey to international criminals involved in serious organised crime.
The biggest non-British threat comes from Chinese criminals, based both in China and the UK, the assessment said.
“Chinese national offenders are linked to cyber, drugs, fraud, illicit finance, modern slavery and human trafficking and organised immigration crime offending that impacts on the UK,” the report found.
It added: “It is likely that the already high threat from Chinese-speaking money laundering networks in the UK continues to grow.
“As well as moving cash for UK criminals, they help UK-based Chinese nationals to evade Chinese currency controls, which enables them to invest in the UK.”
Iran and Russia also allow certain crimes carried out from within their jurisdictions against the UK, including ransomware groups, which are out of the reach of Western law enforcement.
Some countries use offences including cybercrime, drug trafficking and money laundering to support their own objectives or evade sanctions, the assessment said, including North Korea.
In terms of drugs, the use of ketamine has risen sharply in the UK, according to wastewater analysis by the Home Office comparing January to April 2023 with the same period the following year.
Figures from tests that cover 18% of the population of England showed that while cocaine use rose 7%, ketamine consumption rose 85%, and heroin use dropped 11%.
The number of adults who needed medical treatment after taking ketamine rose by five times from 426 in 2014/15 to 2,211 in 2022/23.
It is cheaper than cocaine but can cause severe health problems including damage referred to as “ketamine bladder”, as well as causing a dissociative state when taken, which could leave the user at risk of physical harm, the NCA said.
