The sadistic online cult targeting Aussie kids: Rebekah Nijsen Pt. 1

Former WA police officer Rebekah Nijsen exposes how the 764 group is recruiting Aussie kids through online games and turning it into coercion, exploitation and real-world harm. In this episode of I Catch Killers, Gary sits down with Rebekah, founder of Lighthouse Cyber Education, to break down what 764 is, how it operates, and why it’s now an AFP high priority. From Fortnite and Minecraft to Discord and Telegram, she explains how vulnerable teens are love-bombed, isolated and pressured into harmful acts and why police are struggling to keep up with this cross-border, digital-first crime. You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. https://www.youtube.com/@ICatchKillers-Podcast Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram:@icatchkillers https://www.instagram.com/icatchkillers/?hl=enTiktok:@icatchkillerspodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@icatchkillerspodcastFacebook:@icatchkillers https://www.facebook.com/icatchkillers/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  A decentralised online cult is coercing Australian children into self-harm, torturing their pets and even taking their own lives. They're an extremist, right-wing, Satanist network called 764, and they are a top priority for authorities worldwide. Former WA detective Rebecca Nijsen has spent almost two decades protecting kids on the frontline. And today, she reveals how 764 operates and how law enforcement is trying to tackle it. Take a listen. Rebecca Nijsen, welcome to I Catch Killers.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Thank you, Gary. Good to be on your show.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  Well, I'm looking forward to having a chat with you because, I've got to say, in the preparation for the podcast, my eyes have been opened up to a lot that's going on in the cybercrime space.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, there is certainly some pretty dark spaces on the internet. And I guess my role is to try and uncover those spaces to bring them into the light so that people are aware of them.

• 1:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, perfect background. You spent a long time in the WA police and now you've got your own business, Lighthouse Cyber Education, and that's what you're out there doing. But I've got to say, from the way that crime's changed, isn't it? From the traditional, the way that we looked at crime that occurred on the streets, now the battle against crime is very much in this cyberspace area.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I think there's, any crime now always has an online element to it and some sort of technical aspect to it. Plus, now we're also talking about cross-jurisdictional. So what I mean by that is you might have, say, a victim in WA, Western Australia, but the offender might be in a completely different country. And how do you navigate that when the offender in their country, it's not a criminal offence, but over in Western Australia, it is or vice versa? So you can make it very complex.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, and as both as former cops, we know how difficult it is working cross-jurisdictional and how matters can be lost because of the, we operate sort of in a silo in our own jurisdiction. It makes it very hard.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think even in Australia, we have different state laws to other states. So even within Australia, it can certainly be challenging.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  It's a different world now for parents raising children. Like, you're watching a kid play on the phone, you're thinking, oh, well, at least I can keep an eye on my child. I know what they're doing, where they're up to, or they're in their room. But it's a changing landscape very much, isn't it?

• 3:35Speaker 01

  It is. I mean, as parents, you know, our number one aim is to try and protect our children, right? And we think that if we shut the door and not let people in or not let them out late at night, that they're going to be safe. But the internet, whilst it has been a positive thing and really enriched our lives, it's also created certain complications and I guess threats. When we connect to the internet, we open up a portal to the outside world. And we just don't know where that could be. And not every place online is safe. And I think that that's one of the most important messages we can get out there.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  I looked at this group called 764. Now, my ears pricked up when I heard about them in the media at different times, but I hadn't had a close look at them. I had prior to doing this podcast. I'm horrified what they're up to. Can you give us a bit of understanding of what this 764 group is all about and what they do?

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So probably about February, March this year, it started really being highlighted in Australia. But it started years ago and it started in Texas. And so the name 764 comes from the postcode or zip code of where the original person who was charged in relation to online offences. And he was 15 years old. So what it is, is it's a right-wing extremist group that is operating in online communities that has tendencies for neo-Nazi idealisation

• 5:24Speaker 01

  and very sadistic abuse attached to the group. And what they do is they operate in two areas. There's a com network, which is the recruiting arm. And that operates in online gaming arenas. So we talk about where our kids are going to be. They're going to be playing Fortnite. They're going to be on the Roblox gaming platform, playing all those different games, and on Minecraft. And this group operates from a recruitment level on those games. And they're chatting with kids, looking for kids that might be desensitised to violence,

• 6:06Speaker 01

  meaning that they probably play a lot of violent video games. Because even though it's 18+, it can be very easy to access it online. They have a real desire for status. They want to be that apex predator, that top dog, always kind of winning and bettering their peers. And so what they do is, is they find these kids that are looking to connect. And they connect with them and they get a bit of a rapport going. And then they go, hey, let's move to a different platform, an encrypted platform, and that could be Discord or that could be Telegram. And they pick these platforms because they have high functionality,

• 6:51Speaker 01

  they have high privacy and security, and you can actually have secret groups that nobody else knows about. And so they move these kids onto these platforms and that's where the radicalisation happens. That's when they send them their manifesto and they send them all the information that backs up their right-wing ideology. And then they say, okay, if you want to join 764, there needs to be an initiation process. And so what they say is now you have to go back to the online gaming platforms and you need to find a victim to abuse online, essentially. So generally, they're looking for teenage girls

• 7:36Speaker 01

  that might be struggling with their appearance, body image. They are struggling to connect themselves and asking questions, who am I? They might have gone through, you know, family separation or mental health issues. And then they start chatting to these girls. And they then use a term called love bombing, which is essentially they move them to a different platform. Generally, again, we're talking Discord, Telegram. And they just bomb them with contact and communication over a really short period of time. So they're sending, you know, they might find their mobile number

• 8:20Speaker 01

  and send them text messages or calls or constant messaging to make the person feel that this is the only person in the world. And they do that because they want to isolate their trusted network. They want to isolate them from their peers or from their parents so it feels like that this is the only person in their world. And then once they do that, then they kind of start manipulating and control. And so they do things like they won't answer any calls for, say, 24 hours. And the victim's left going, what have I done? What have I done? How do I fix this, you know, relationship?

• 9:03Speaker 01

  And then they come in and go, okay, well, if you self-harm, if you cut yourself and live-stream it to me, then I know that you care about me.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  And then what they do is they record that and then send it, or they even live-stream it onto the Telegram or the Discord channels for all these members to watch. And we're talking about members all over the world. And remember, we're dealing with, I guess, an ideology that they're always trying to get, do more and more and more and more. So it gets more sadistic and darker as it goes.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, Rebecca, what you've just outlined there, it's horrifying. Like, I look at crime and I think crime, you've got a bad person, they commit a bad offence. You're talking a group of people that are manipulating vulnerable people, not just in one small town or one city, across the globe. The people that set it up, the boy that you referred to, Bradley Candenhead, he was 15 at the time and he's currently serving 80 years in prison. So that's how serious, how serious they take it. And we're talking self-harm. We're talking, I've read an article about killing the family pet

• 10:26Speaker 00

  to prove their loyalty to this group that they want to become part of.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Yes, so animal cruelty, being cruel to their siblings is some of the common traits of what they do. And fortunately, some of the victims have actually committed suicide because of, I guess, this group and this abuse that has taken place.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Is this a product of what kids have been exposed to? Because I'm thinking that at that age, growing up, yeah, a generation ago, that you, unless you had the outlier, the pure evil person, no one was thinking along those lines.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  I think it's an innate will for us to feel like we belong and to have community. And what's happened with the digital space is, you know, in 2020, COVID hit us. And all of a sudden, now we're telling our kids, okay, it's not safe for you to go down to the park and hang out with your mates. You have to connect online. And whilst that was happening, then from a policing side of view, we were in a state of emergency. So we were focusing our efforts away from the predatory behaviours online

• 11:44Speaker 01

  and towards trying to um make sure the state was safe. And as a result, all these online predators had essentially a full reign on our kids that we were being telling, go online. And then mainstream social media were telling kids about um di- different hidden platforms like Discord and saying, hey, come check this out. And it's just not a safe necessarily place, I guess, for kids to be.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Um, let's wind it back a bit, and I wanna get further into uh seven, six, four and and some of the stuff that they've done. But uh your, your background, why, why did you become a cop? What uh what inspired you to uh pursue that uh career?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I joined the police in, in Perth, Western Australia when I was twenty. I always had a desire to become a police officer and bit strange because none of my family are, are sort of in the policing uh arena. But I've always wanted to be a voice for people who felt like they've lost their voice. And I always um wanted to help people. So the main reasons I joined was to, to help the community, to protect the community and be a support in situations where, you know, they, they really needed it.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  Uh what areas in uh in WA did you work? Because it's a, it's a big state and there's many different uh roles you can, you can have in uh WA Police. Where, where did you work?

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I just uh worked metro. I didn't uh work rural. Um but I started off in Belmont and that was a bit of a baptism of fire.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  With a bit of busy.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Um, learning, learning the streets there. And, and then I moved to a burglary task force that was set up in the district to try and curb the amount of burglaries that was happening. Um, that was quite a fond, I guess, time of my career. We had a really good partnership with our detectives in the district. So the uniformed officers would go out and deal with the burglaries and the property side and, and then the detectives would deal with more the drug related um aspect of it. And it was a really good uh aspect, I guess, a, a positive of being a female in, in the police force is when you do a search warrant, you generally need a female to attend the search warrant in case,

• 14:16Speaker 01

  you know, there's, there's female occupants there. So I did get some great opportunities to be able to learn from the detectives um who attended these search warrants because they needed me to come along um to cover that sort of aspect. So there was certainly, I guess, some positives involved in that as well.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, you, you went into uh plain clothes. What, what areas did you work in as a detective?

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Uh, so I worked in child protection.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Um, and I think that that was probably the first area that I, I saw that exploitation of children was happening online as well and not just physically. And so I, I really enjoyed my time there, but I found it very confronting and difficult as well, particularly when you're dealing with children and, and it can be difficult when they can't disclose. And in, in criminality, you have an offence, you have to be able to prove every element. And if you can't prove every element, then you can't charge. And when you're dealing with children as, I guess, the complainant or the victim, it can be very hard to kind

• 15:29Speaker 01

  of get that over the line. So it was challenging, but it was definitely rewarding work. Uh, then I sort of moved to, to Midland and did some work out there back then into the city. Um, before sort of then, I guess, taking the turn of my career where I moved more into computer crime and, and technology crime.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  With just holding the, the spot on uh child protection, that's, and every time I, I speak to police officers and I, I saw it in my own career, it, it seems like an area that's uh grossly under-resourced. Um, everyone there seems busy. They're always juggling multiple cases and their cases are not, you know, homicides are bad investigation, but invariably when the homicides occurred, you're, you're not preventing a crime, you're trying to find the perpetrator. With child protection, a lot of hard calls for you because you've got kids in um, you know, at risk. And I would imagine, you know, Friday afternoon, you're looking forward to knocking off and some information comes in. And it would be

• 16:32Speaker 00

  very hard to walk away from that uh, that information, not uh, you know, do what you could do to save, save the children.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. I think um hit the nail on the head. Friday afternoon, the priority one job's always seen to sort of rock into the desk. Um, and they were always very complex.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Generally, they involve people in authority. And, you know, that could be um, you know, school teachers, in government, in um high-profile positions. There was generally an aspect to it that made it complex. And it could just be a family as well. I mean, the amount of time she would rock up and, and, you know, either partner, the wife or the husband had no idea what was going on. And the amount of times that they would back each other up and not believe that their kids was, was definitely annoying enough.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a uh, it's a thing that we've got to all take uh, take a good, hard look at ourselves on uh, on that. Because I'd see people that would support their partner, not believe the kid. And a lot of it's about uh, well, if you take the uh, take the partner away, invariably it's the male, so they're the money earner. What are we gonna do? Um, the shame of uh being uh a partner that's been sexually assaulting children. There's so many complexities to it, but it, it's a crime that I think it helps to talk about. I think we sweep it under the carpet because it is so confronting, but we need to talk about it because it's so prevalent. And you would have seen, as, as I've seen, the impact

• 18:13Speaker 00

  that uh people that have been abused as children, the destructive patterns in their life years, years later, they carry it for a very long time, if not for their whole life.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. And I think for, for me, my sort of detective and policing career, it helped me to see that side. So that later on, when I was dealing with um, you know, drug offences or um someone that's, you know, a, a priority offender that is in and out of jail. And then sort of you could drag it all the way back and, and a lot of the time, they actually were exposed to or, or were victims of um child sexual abuse themselves.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  And so from that perspective of dealing with these people as victims, not the offender, it gave you a look into their life and, and certainly didn't excuse what they did or their behaviour. But it gave you a bit of understanding and I think a bit of empathy to say, we're all just humans.

• 19:23Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Um, and some people have just had horrific things happen to them. Certainly doesn't excuse the decisions that they've made in their life, but it helps you get, I guess, a little bit more empathy for them or, or to be able to deal with them as, as a human, which is so important as a police officer.

• 19:44Speaker 00

  Uh, look, I, I've seen it since I've left the police. I identified it when I was, was in the police. But uh since I've left the police and interviewing uh ex-cops on, on the podcast or just speaking to people, all the police officers I, I look up to, it, no matter what area they, they've, they work in, are ones that have that empathy. I think it's so important in uh, in policing and we've really got to uh look for that. And that doesn't mean you're soft or weak or, you know, empathy is just an understanding. And I think it carries you a long way in uh, in policing.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  Working in uh child protection, um whether it's child protection, homicide, sex crimes or whatever, it's very victim orientated. Did you realise going into cybercrime that uh it was gonna be very victim orientated too? Because I've got to adjust my thinking. I, I think cybercrime, I'm thinking bank frauds, that type of thing, which there are victims in that. But cybercrime has changed now. Uh, we've got to change our thinking that you've, you've got victims. Like when we talk about that seven, six, four group and the type of things that can happen. Um, sexploitation of, of young kids. And you hear some horrendous stories where kids take their own lives because they, they've been shamed by, you know, what's been posted.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that can be very challenging because I think when I first kind of got into technology crime and computer crime, it was, it was more a chance for me to sort of step back away from the, the frontline for a bit. But as I sort of um sat there for a bit and learnt more of um what was going on, you would have victims in WA, for example, and they would be terribly uh extorted online because they've sent sexual images and now all of a sudden a blackmailer is saying, hey, pay us this money or we're gonna share your images with all your friends and family. And majority of the time, the offender

• 21:46Speaker 01

  was overseas. And I'll say majority of the time because we do know examples where there has been victim and offender actually in the state. But generally speaking, most of the offenders were overseas. So it makes it very hard because whilst there is an element that has happened in WA, which is the victim, and it's very real what's happened to them, from a state policing perspective, there was very little we could do in terms of the criminality and actually charging someone and holding someone to account to that.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  So it was difficult from the policing perspective that you had. Uh, I guess an organisation and bosses that went, well, if we can't charge anyone, you have to move on.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  And deal with the next crime because we've got so much to deal with and not enough resources. But then at the same time, you're still dealing with a real person and what's the fallback from that? The schools, the parents, the kids themselves, and they're left kinda in this lurch of. No one's really supporting us. No one really understands. What do we do with this? And that's probably where I first uh got the passion to kinda go. I I wanna do something about this. It doesn't feel right to me to just leave these people.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Give me an example of someone that's been exploited in that way.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So you've got a uh a teenager, say they're fourteen years old. We'll use the example of a young man, fourteen years old. He's on Instagram. And he's looking at Instagram reels every day and then all of a sudden. Up pops a D M, a direct message, and they look at it and it's from someone they don't know. And they um have a look and this person looks like a a beautiful, attractive young lady. And they start chatting with each other and within a short few minutes. Uh, the the conversation turns sexual, it turns intimate. And they go, well, you look hot, I'm hot, let's, you know.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Exchange some pictures together and and they don't really think with their critical thinking brain. They just think on impulses. Uh, and they they put their video or we've got a phone now, right? You just hit record. Record yourself doing, you know, sexual poses like masturbating or something like that. And then um they on send it to this person. The other person, generally speaking, would come up with ideas of, oh, my camera's broken, I can't do it. But I wanna caveat that to say now with A I.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  They are getting, they are receiving similar content back, so they feel like it it's legitimate.

• 24:50Speaker 00

  So I'm the fourteen year old kid sending uh photos of myself and then. You're getting something back and that's A I now. So it's before it used to an excuse why they couldn't send it. So the kid's lapping it up, going, oh, this is great and I can trust this person because they've made themselves vulnerable as I am. Um.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  Feeling comfortable, yeah.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and sometimes it's first. So they send through a topless photo.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  And then the other person's like, well, it must be real. And then they send their, you know, video and then all of a sudden they're getting sent loads of messages saying. We know what you've done. We're gonna send, here's all your videos and your photos that we've just taken. Here's a snapshot of your friends list from your TikTok profile, from your Instagram profile. We're gonna share this with all your friends and family. They're gonna know all about what you do online. Uh, unless you pay us money.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  And, you know, and when we talk about adults, it could even be that. Adults are getting scammed with extortion and they turn around and go, did you know I'm a thirteen year old child? And I'm gonna share with everyone now that you're a pedophile.

• 26:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, see, that's a uh that's a big threat on someone, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  That's huge, right?

• 26:09Speaker 00

  Uh, you can see how people become vulnerable very easily and it's just human nature to be sucked into something like that. And, yeah, the consequences. And I would imagine, and and tell me in in your experience. Even if they paid the blackmail money or or did whatever. Uh, in my experience with kidnappings or extortions, it's never just a one-off payment and we're gonna go away. Once they know they can get some money out of you, it's gonna come back.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. You're almost on a list saying this person will pay.

• 26:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  So they share that with other people and then other people will then target the poor victim. Because they're likely to pay.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  Can we get back to uh seven, six, four again? Because I I've been going down the rabbit hole of uh that now that I've looked how bad it is. A- as I said, I I heard it mentioned in the media of of recent times. But uh some of the things that uh are occurring and like. The A F P have uh recently flagged the seven, six, four group as a high priority. So, yeah, this is the A F P saying, this is a real threat. We know of the type of things where the traditional cults. That say we had in the seventies and eighties that, you know, you could identify it and that sort of. Okay, pack of weirdos, you stay over there, we'll stay away from you.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  But this is, they are almost operating like a cult, the way you described it, indoctrinating people into their beliefs and uh and trapping people in there.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, very much so. And and they're not just then indoctrinating um the kids that they are recruiting. They're also then indoctrinating the victims. So the victims are also being indoctrinated with the right wing ideology. Whilst also being abused and exploited. Through the different means that we've spoken about. So why do they do that? Well, control. Because it's all about control and manipulation. It's all about getting someone. To feel like I totally submit to the dominant person, to the alpha male.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  And that's ultimately what it looks like, that domination submissive sort of relationship, I guess.

• 28:32Speaker 00

  How how does the ideology come into it too? Like the ideology that that got going with this seven, six, four group? What's that about? Are they trying to uh disrupt the world, like the the way that they're they're spreading and uh, yeah, it's worldwide? What are they, what are they actually trying to achieve? Or are they just getting their cheap kicks from uh destroying people's lives?

• 28:56Speaker 01

  I think this group is connecting with each other because of pain. So it's pain that they feel themselves because they feel that. They have been harshly dealt with or they don't fit in the world. And so they wanna then inflict that pain on others because they sort of have a feel of, well. I don't like where this world is. I'm gonna try and mess it up as much as I can. To make it as as worse as it can be for everyone out there because I think the world is like that for me.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  If that makes sense. So it's kinda like they're trying to. Increase the amount of violence. And not just online, right? So we've got examples where, not in Australia, but in um overseas where. Some of these group members have actually then taken the online world of seven, six, four. And actually committed violent attacks on random people that they don't even know in the public. And live streaming it to say, well, see, I've one-upped you. I've done something that's even worse or more cruel or more sadistic.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  And it's just this, I guess, persona that they just wanna be almost god.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  That that's interesting, but also very scary. They're trying to to one-up. Because I I'm looking at some of the some of the stuff they've been in involved in and it's not just the uh. Blackmailing and uh extortion. We we've touched on that, but like self-inflicting harm and getting them to live stream that or send. And getting them to carve their names in blood and. Killing the family pet, like this is, this is sadism, this is uh sadistic. And where where does it stop? Because I would imagine, you know, a precursor to uh. Someone that's getting off on uh killing the family pet might be next thing, well, how about you uh you kill your brother, kill your sister or or do something like that?

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the scary thing is the the um structure of this group. Is they're always trying to do more and more and more. And so when does it stop?

• 31:17Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Because there's always gonna be someone that does something and and someone will go, oh, I've got a better that. And I think, well, how does it grow? Well, we talk about the online world and we talk about uh there's no limits is. You might have someone in Perth that has ideas that. They don't like the world or or they wanna inflict pain on someone and. Isolated, it wouldn't go anywhere. But now all of a sudden, we have this. Connection in digital communities online where we can find anyone.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  That agrees with our world views or what we believe as great or as cruel as that could be. And so now all of a sudden, we have a a mechanism where people can. Connect and make their own digital communities about anything.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  That that's the scary part, isn't it? With the outliers that used to be the uh the village idiot. Or, you know, the the person that uh everyone don't uh don't listen to him. Virtually any, you know, tangent someone wants to go off on, they can find like-minded people that will support them.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  In their their crazy, crazy uh beliefs. Um. I I read an article, Swedish court documents obtained uh reveal that groups involved in attacks in several countries. Included repeated abuse of an Australian girl who's blackmailing to. Strangling her family pet and committing self-mutilation. So, yeah, people in Sweden have been locked up for crimes they've committed over in Australia.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's why it's so crucial that parents know. What their kids are doing online and who they're interacting with. And to make sure that they're not just hearing one voice.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  You know, because that's how indoctrination happens, right? They're only hearing one voice. And they're hearing it over and over again, the same message. And that's why it's important that our kids are online, sure, and have their digital communities. But they also have real world connections. And it's vital that our kids do not lose real world connections. Particularly now that A I is taking over and we know that kids are using A I. As friends and as guidance and as therapy and for help.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  And that is alarming in itself, right? We need to make sure that kids are talking to real people.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  The digital world is evolving so, so quickly. Is law enforcement keeping up with the changes?

• 34:07Speaker 01

  I think that they're trying. They are really trying and they want to, but it's a moving beast and it's evolving at such pace that to change legislation is not quick. And then on top of that, they have to work within the boundaries of the law.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Right? So if we're talking about things rapidly happening online and, and they're happening on, you know, platforms like Telegram where you've got secret groups, meaning that you can only access these areas with an invite only, then how do you then get police to have a seat at that table? Then you have to do all your covert operations and things like that. And that takes time. And then that has to then be signed off to say, okay, well, these, you know, police officers can commit these offences, but not these offences.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  And then there's risk involved in that because what if that then gets out and it's on the West Australian on Monday morning, they're trying to do the right thing, but they still have to work within the bounds of the law, which makes it extremely difficult. Now, in saying that, the law's there for a reason, right? We can't go rogue or be vigilantes and just say, well, for the greater good, we can do this because where does that end? And, and I think that that's where the confliction is. Um, no, nobody is keeping up with it because it's moving so rapidly because criminals and

• 35:50Speaker 01

  the predators, they don't have to worry about the law and the boundaries of the law. So they have carte blanche to do whatever they want. Granted, if they get caught, there will be consequences, but they can still work at that rapid pace where you look at law enforcement and they have to work within that bounds of the law, which has always got to hold them back from really being at the forefront of where it's at.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  I also have a concern that this is a silent crime too, that there would be a lot that goes on, like if there's an arson in the street, a car gets burnt out, you know, police are gonna have to respond. If someone's been assaulted, you know, police are gonna, are gonna respond. This potentially is a silent crime and I think you as an experienced former cop and, and myself, we know that the police tend to respond when there's a public urgency about it, like if there's a high profile, yeah, it might even, in a, a local area, it might even be a spade of break and enters, but police need to respond if it's reported in the, in the media. With this, it's almost a silent crime and I dare say, there's a lot of things that haven't

• 37:02Speaker 00

  been reported that have gone on that's caused a lot of drama in people's lives, but they, they feel stupid or the shame of, of what's occurred to them. What, what's your take on that?

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. I mean, we know that, that kids and generally kids in the elderly are the most vulnerable when it comes online. And the reason for that is because generally they stay silent. They don't even share, we're talking kids, they don't even share it with their peers, let alone telling their trusted adults or their parents that can actually help them. So we look at the statistics and go, wow, yep, um, online extortion of kids, it's pretty bad, but it's 10 times worse than that because probably majority of the kids aren't actually reporting. What we found when we were investigating the cybercrime and it was just kind of the

• 37:57Speaker 01

  tip of the iceberg in online extortion, when I was sort of there, is you would go speak to a victim at school and you'd find out it's not an isolated case. In, in fact, you know, a third of the classroom had experienced similar things online because what the online predators do is they target a school or they target a class in a school. They don't just randomly pick kids here and there. They have more a targeted, I guess, approach to that. So it's, it's definitely a silent, um, silent crime out there. And I think that that's where it's our job to, one, educate the parents to say, this

• 38:39Speaker 01

  is happening and to try and, try and get the kids to see that they need to speak up. Because when they speak up, people can help them and we can shine a light on it, like you're saying, so we can have a public outcry so that something is done about it.

• 38:57Speaker 00

  I, I've heard stories of, yeah, with sextortion where the kids, from the moment it's happened, um, there was one, a sad one and I, I won't say the name, but I saw it in the, in the media where within 12 hours, a, a kid had taken his own life because of the embarrassment and shame of what, what the threats were against him. That's how rapidly it can play out.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think with, um, the use of AI and AI-generated content, it's getting quicker.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  You know, it's taking, it's not months now to groom kids. It's much quicker and the serious harm and exploitation and abuse is happening much quicker than we were seeing before.

• 39:48Speaker 00

  Has the legislation caught up with fake porn? You hear a lot of situations with fake porn. Is legislation catching up there?

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the legislation is there.

• 40:01Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  The hard part is identity. So what that means is trying to put a offender behind the keyboard or behind the phone who actually commits the offence. So most of the time, we can't, we know something's happened and we can prove an offence has happened and the legislation is there to be able to hold that person to account. The difficulty is being able to pin it to a person. And that's because, you know, there's so much, um, keeping anonymous online, you know, hiding your IP, using VPNs, um, you know, using proxies to kind of hide your location

• 40:46Speaker 01

  of where you're sending things. You can, um, use different softwares to say you're in a different country. There's so many ways to hide the fact that it's a local offender. And then we talk about the cloud, right? So most people don't store their information on their computer or on a hard drive, a physical copy in their home, they store it on the cloud. So where is their data? It's actually over, half of it's over in America, half of it's over in Sweden. And, and then again, we're talking about that jurisdictional battle to then try and

• 41:28Speaker 01

  access, legally access that information, um, to actually pin it to a person. And, and I think that that's where the difficulty can be. It is definitely getting better, but it's also then trying to educate the police officers to understand how it works. And it moves so quickly that, you know, how it was a year ago has completely changed.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Rebecca, the fact that you mentioned that, because that's what, I just wanted to jump in on it and, and say, the technical expertise required to investigate these crimes are not what I remember was readily available within the police. We had our technical branches and cyber areas relatively small because they weren't used a great deal. What you have described there, I'm thinking on any, virtually any homicide investigation, I would be wanting an expert to come in and, and we, we have analysts as, as you're aware, but there's really an expertise that's required to stay ahead of the game because we can't play, well, we shouldn't as law enforcement be playing catch up, we should be ahead of the game.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  And we have been in the past when we're, we're brought in the technical experts that can outsmart the crooks that we're after, but I'm worried that law enforcement won't have the expertise required to, to match it.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's hard, right, because money talks.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Uh, and we talk about a lot of these platforms and they're making so much money that they can afford to have the best legal coverage and they can afford to have the best technical people to support, you know, their defence.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  You know, as, as a, as state or a federal government, you're very limited in, in your budget, which can make it very hard that how do we then get access to these technical people unless they almost do it on a, on a pro bono basis.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Well, I, I suppose that's where the government's got to come in and I, I'm, you know, throwing back years gone by, but telephone services were required to keep their records for a certain period of time. So for police to be able to investigate, the records had to be kept stored. That's the type of legislation that we need the government pushing for. So law enforcement aren't disadvantaged going up against multi million, uh, multi billion, I should say, organisations that can employ the smartest and best people.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I think, um, I think the data storage and being able to actually access the information that they need is so vital.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Um, it makes me wonder where, how far we're away from like a cyber homicide. Yeah, uh, someone being charged, not physically there for the homicide, like we've got conspiracies to commit homicide, but what we're talking about here, it's not that far away. Like you're murdering, uh, you know, talking someone into murdering their, or murdering to taking the life of the family pet. It's not that far away from when they're encouraging people to, uh, you know, take a human life.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  No, it's not. And I think that that's where law enforcement needs to be bold, to be able to push, push the boundaries. Like you and I both know, you, you had those cases where you needed to push the boundaries to get the case law.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  Set the precedence.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, and so we need our law enforcement, we need our lawyers, um, to be bold to go, we're gonna, we're gonna push this to make a precedent that it's not right and it is legal and they should be held accountable. Absolutely.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, we've spoken seven, six, four. Is there other groups that are notorious or other platforms that are coming, coming up that are creating the same type of problems?

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, I think with, um, online extremism, you obviously have the left side and you have the right side. And there's definitely groups, I think, on, on both. And they do use the online platforms to do that. Definitely Telegram, Discord are two of your main ones, but you've got any encrypted platform that has your secret groups, your private groups, your invite only, they're going to be using that.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  With Telegram and Discord, how their, how their platforms have been used and the, the problems they're creating, are they getting on board and helping address this problem? Or are they putting up barriers to prevent law enforcement getting involved?

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you look at Discord, um, Discord is a unique platform in the sense that it's open source, which means that, um, it's not per se, uh, like Meta that's proprietary and you have, you know, Mark Zuckerberg that is the CEO of it.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  Could you be held responsible? Yeah.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the way that Discord is, uh, structured is anyone can create their own channel. And then you come up with your own rules, boundaries of how that channel is structured. So Discord kind of go, well, that's not our responsibility because we leave it up to a community member to kind of create their group the best way that they see fit. They do have parental controls on Discord, which is good. And before they didn't have that.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  And so that's a positive. Uh, but in saying that, the age assurance that social media, um, companies are using can be, um, bypassed really easy.

• 47:35Speaker 00

  The, the, this is, uh, under the age of 15 or, or whatever the age is set that.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So the, generally it's an age estimation where the user has to consent to AI taking a video or an image of that user. And then they go through and determine an age and based on what the age is, is what the account's set at and then what permissions that they can and can't do. But kids being kids are, are more tech savvy than we are because they're digital natives. They've, they've grown up in this world and they've figured out ways how to beat it. And so now we've got a whole bunch of kids that, you know, shouldn't be on these platforms because they're age restricted platforms,

• 48:23Speaker 01

  but they are because they've figured out how to beat it. And now they have adult unrestricted accounts, which almost makes it worse. So that's Discord. Then you've got Telegram and the creator of, of Telegram, he's all about privacy and security. And he's all about, um, being anti-government censoring what's put on the internet and what's put on his app. So his main focus is not money, it is security and privacy. So that will always be a programme that has nefarious people on it because of privacy and security being

• 49:07Speaker 01

  such a big, I guess, aspect of that platform.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  Complex. So, so very.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Very complex.

• 49:15Speaker 00

  It was easier just seeing the bad guy run down the street with the balaclava on and the sawn off shotgun. That was, uh, that was the easy days of law enforcement. But, uh, yeah, so, so many different, different layers. We'll take a break now, if that's okay. And when we get back, we've talked about, and I've got to say, I'm somewhat shocked and I'm just thinking as you're, you're talking the whole time, I'm thinking, how do you stop this? How do you stop that? When we get back in, in part two, I'd, I'd like you to, uh, instruct us on the best things that you can, uh, can do to, uh, prevent your, your children falling victim to this. I also want to talk about Manosphere and, uh, the impact that

• 49:56Speaker 00

  has and how this plays into the digital world that we're talking about and, uh, and what you're doing in your business and getting out and educating people because, uh, well, I need educating and you're educating me. I think there's a lot of people out there that, uh, that need it. Okay. We'll be back shortly.