The twisted online networks of teenage boys drawing their peers into 'suicide' games

The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) has raised concerns about so-called Com - short for community - networks, describing them as one of the country’s biggest criminal threats; second only to the small boats crisis.

The network is a series of group chats which recruit members and encourage them to commit crimes, in return for notoriety, or clout.

Cases in the UK have increased fivefold since 2023, driven by members across the English-speaking world.

It has prompted the NCA to join forces with the world’s most powerful intelligence agency, the FBI, to try and make sense of and tackle the growing and international threat.

A leading campaign group has told us new online safety laws in Britain are "poorly placed" to mitigate the harm Com groups cause, claiming their warnings to the Government over the past 18 months have "fallen on deaf ears".

To fully understand and explain the emerging online threat, over the past few months LBC has spoken to law enforcement agencies, researchers, charities and the parents of a young boy who tragically took his own life after being coerced.

What is ‘The Com’?

The Com has been described by experts as a “cluster of networks that emphasise and encourage extremely harmful, high risk and antisocial behaviour that targets young and vulnerable people”.

The worldwide groups often recruit members into their chats from social media sites and gaming platforms and use a high volume of gory and sexualised material to desensitise children.

They glorify criminal acts and encourage members to commit their own, in order to move up the ranks, earn clout and gain notoriety among their peers.

“It’s all a game to them,” is how one expert described it, saying “they just want their name on the roster that’s sent around the group.”

Rob Richardson, deputy threat lead for child sexual abuse at the NCA, explained that the ‘tasks’ completed by members of the Com have been known to quickly escalate.

He told LBC: “These groups are involved in the sharing of child sexual abuse material, cyber-crime, the sharing of extreme right-wing terrorism material, coercing girls into self-harm, animal cruelty and in some extreme circumstances persuading girls to commit suicide.

“We’ve seen young girls coerced into cutting a brand into their arms [relating to the Com group’s identity] or to use the blood to do sort of signs in their bedrooms and then the videos of that will be used to demonstrate the level of harm that they have created.”

Three experts in the field have told LBC they’ve come across victims as young as nine.

Traditionally in criminal investigations, police would expect to find perpetrators acting out of a motive for financial gain or sexual gratification, but Com groups appear to be more about chasing notoriety and access to more exclusive - and extreme - channels.

“Part of the reason why we think the threat is so severe from this is because the motivations are kind of new to us,” Rob added.

Exploitation

Researchers from across the world have explained to us that the Com regularly targets vulnerable young people on mainstream social media sites to become victims of their crimes.

A quick search for a well-known hashtag relating to self-harm and eating disorders on two platforms returned dozens of accounts talking openly about mental health struggles - and sharing pictures of their injuries.

Henry Adams, an online security consultant with Kroll, told LBC that sometimes members "masquerade" as someone who will help the target "get through difficult times."

“Often this starts in what are otherwise legitimate and quite welcome support communities,” he said, “where people are talking about wellbeing, perhaps self-harm or similar topics.

“But they try to move them off platform, to darker spaces, encrypted spaces, where they are then quite seriously bombarded with messages, with graphic content.”

Jean Slater, who is based in Toronto and has spent the past few years monitoring the activities of Com groups, explained that fan forums and videos related to gaming sites like Roblox are also used to entice people in.

The Molly Rose Foundation, set up in the memory of 14-year-old Molly Russell from Harrow in London, who died by suicide linked to social media consumption, described the tactics of the Com network as a “new form of grooming”.

Com in the UK

While one of the most notorious groups linked to the Com - 764 - is reported to have originated in Texas, set up by a 15-year-old school drop-out and named after his postcode, the phenomenon has spread globally around the English-speaking world.

The FBI earlier this year revealed it had opened more than 250 investigations into people linked to Com groups.

LBC can now reveal more than 100 investigations are underway into crimes in the United Kingdom, including the coercion of young girls to take their own lives and cars being firebombed in a major city.

In January, 19-year-old Cameron Finnigan from Horsham in West Sussex was handed a nine-year extended sentence after he was found to be planning a ‘terror week.’

Counter Terrorism Police found he was a member of the 764 group, with one researcher telling LBC he was "pretty high up" in the ranks of notoriety.

He was found guilty of encouraging suicide after messages revealed he’d told a girl, who said she was contemplating it, to do it on livestream so he could "capture it and claim it for 764," which he then boasted about in his group chat.

The teenager was also convicted of being in possession of a terrorist document, indecent images of children, and criminal damage to a car and a fence.

He told other members he wanted to get a homeless man on his knees, make him "submit to their ways," shoot him in the head and hide his body in a tent.

Rob Richardson, from the NCA, told LBC: “We’re [seeing the threat] increase here. Referrals are going up year on year - so it was about 20 in 2023, up to 100 last year and we’ve already exceeded that number in 2025.

“But it’s only once an investigation [into a crime] has progressed that we are then able to identify a link to the Com so it could well be that we’re looking at the tip of an iceberg.”

“Dad, can I go and play?”

LBC understands there have been no definitive links between the suicide of a teenager in the UK and the Com network, but suspected perpetrators of victims abroad have been identified.

However, as with Molly Russell, there have been multiple teenage deaths recorded because of online interactions.

“He looked at me and said ‘Dad, can I go and play?’ and they were the last words we ever heard from Christopher. That’s it.”

George Nicolaou and his wife Areti, from Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, found their 15-year-old son dead in his bedroom in March 2022.

He’d faced 50 days of torment and challenges set by an anonymous online predator, who’d targeted Christopher through an online game.

“We found him with an earpiece in his ear and the phone on the floor,” his dad said.

“We picked up his phone and at that moment a message came through that said, ‘are you dead?’.

“He was murdered. He was pushed to complete his final challenge, and why do I say that? Because at 8.21pm he submitted his school homework online and by 9.35pm he was gone.”

Holding back tears, Christopher’s mum Areti told LBC: “Two days before it all happened, we booked a ticket to go to Greece and his worry was that his exams were coming and he would need to study.”

Christopher’s parents described how his behaviour had changed in the weeks leading up to his death, as he was made to complete a set of tasks under the threat of his family being killed.

They included Christopher being told to eat cereal in a set timeframe, not sleep all night, watch a gory horror film and tamper with the home security system.

George said: “As a parent, I was none the wiser. I had no idea how games work and when I’d ask him who are you talking to, he’d say ‘my friend’.

“As far as we were concerned a friend is someone you know but obviously later, we found out they're not friends in reality.”

George and Areti have now set up a charity in their son’s name to help educate children and parents around online safety, called the Christoforos Charity Foundation.

Online Safety Act ‘poorly placed’

LBC can reveal that the Molly Rose Foundation wrote to the government in April 2025 as part of their efforts to raise concerns about the growing threat of the Com.

They claim the warnings have ‘fallen on deaf ears’.

Andy Burrows, the charity’s chief executive, told us: “These groups are at the leading edge of the concerns we have about suicide and self-harm risks for young people. Essentially, they’re practicing a new form of grooming.

“This is a growing and escalating threat here in the UK and it should be front and centre for the government, the regulator and for all of us.”

In the letter, seen by LBC, the group warned that attacks like the Southport killings could be repeated through the Com, without urgent action.

It said: “The fluid ideologies driving these groups are broadly the same as were thrust into the spotlight by Axel Rudakubana, Nicholas Prosper and Cameron Finnigan.

“Further atrocities now appear almost inevitable unless the Government acts to address the palpable weaknesses in the Online Safety Act and the evident shortcomings in how Ofcom is implementing it.”

Andy told LBC that the government “needs to act decisively, before it’s too late.”

A Government spokesperson told LBC: “Protecting vulnerable people from toxic content that could push them toward suicide is not optional for online platforms — it's a legal obligation.”

Former Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, speaking before he left the role to become Business Secretary last week, added: “I've acted quite considerably and very rapidly to tackle some of these things.

“Any service that brings people together online is within scope of the Online Safety Act but if the law is too complicated to lead to the kinds of action and interventions that we need, then I will look at this and I always do.

“What I'm trying to do is not just play whack a mole in this job but introduce laws and regulations to try and get to the point where services are safe before deployment.

“There will always be circumstances where this sort of stuff emerges, and I will act as quickly as I can.”

An Ofcom spokesperson said: “We recognise the threats posed by Com networks, and are working closely with law enforcement on ways to tackle them.

“We’ve set out several specific ways platforms can protect UK users from the harms caused by these groups. This includes measures to tackle grooming, child sexual abuse material and hate speech, as well as ways to prevent children from encountering suicide and self-harm content, and protect them from misogynistic, violent, hateful or abusive material.

“We’re closely scrutinising tech firms’ compliance with their new duties under the Online Safety Act, which have come into force in the last six months, and we’ve already launched several investigations.”