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Mord im Netz

1:32:21 recording · EN · 4 speakers

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Brief overview

A Hamburg medical student ran inside the online sadism network 764, driving vulnerable children to self-harm and suicide.

  1. 764 grew unnoticed into a global networkRoman Höfner and his colleagues found members active in at least 20 countries before any authority or newsroom reported on it.
  2. Recognition in the chats is paid for in harmStatus rises with cruelty, so members collect victims like playing cards through fan signs, cut signs and sextortion.
  3. German authorities were warned years before the arrestNCMEC alerted the BKA about Sharia J. in 2021 and the FBI reported him to the LKA Hamburg in February 2023, yet he was only arrested in mid-June 2025.
Executive Summary AI
  • The network 764 is named after the first three digits of the ZIP code of Stephenville, a Texas town of about 20,000 people, where 15-year-old Bradley Cadenhead founded the Discord group in 2021; he has since been sentenced to 80 years in prison in the USA.14:34
  • Members hunt the most vulnerable children they can find on Discord and Telegram, demanding fan signs and cut signs in which victims carve a user's name into their own skin on camera, and pressing some of them towards suicide.19:20
  • Anja, a pseudonym for the user FMLK, registered on Discord in autumn 2021 at the age of 15, was pulled from gore content into 764 and radicalized within months from lonely newcomer to perpetrator.32:57
  • On the morning of 7 November 2021 Samuel Howie, called Sam, travelled by bus from Bishkek to Mount Tashtar Ata with two plastic bottles of petrol and set himself on fire in a livestream watched by up to 29 users, with Anja claiming his death for herself in the chat.56:20
  • After FBI tips reached Hamburg, Sharia J., known online as White Tiger, was arrested in June 2025 and now stands trial for the murder of 13-year-old Jay in Washington State, attempted murder in five further cases and the torment of more than 30 children, facing up to ten years in juvenile detention.1:20:59
Key Quote
“I've never seen something like the Chrome Network or 764.”
— Roman Höfner12:05
Key Quote
“I was just a very quiet kid.”
— Anja34:03
Key Quote
“The game is who does worse than the other person.”
— Anja45:32