Com member jailed for blackmail and sextortion
▼ Summary
– Justin Swaddle, a 20-year-old member of the cybercrime collective The Com, was sentenced to two years in prison for blackmail and sextortion against nearly 120 victims aged 13 to 17 worldwide.
– Swaddle pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse and blackmail charges at Leeds Crown Court and will be added to the National Sex Offenders Register with a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
– The NCA found images of children aged 3 to 17 on Swaddle’s devices, including victims with self-harm injuries and his aliases carved into their skin, plus indecent images in the most severe categories.
– Telegram messages showed Swaddle attempted to incite a child to sexually abuse a younger child, threatening to leak indecent images if more content wasn’t provided.
– The Com is organized into subgroups like Offline, (S)extortion, Cyber, and 764, linked to ransomware attacks and a Europol operation that led to 30 arrests and flagging 4,340 URLs for removal.
A 20-year-old man from Leeds has been handed a two-year prison sentence for his role in a disturbing online extortion network that preyed on nearly 120 young victims across the globe. Justin Swaddle, who operated under the aliases “Epstein,” “Rugen,” and “Moscow” on platforms like Snapchat, Telegram, and Discord, was a member of “The Com,” a decentralized cybercrime collective notorious for targeting minors.
Swaddle first came under scrutiny in October 2023 when West Yorkshire Police arrested him. His case moved through the courts swiftly, culminating in a guilty plea on July 2 at Leeds Crown Court for multiple child sexual abuse offenses and blackmail. Beyond the prison term, his sentence includes a decade-long Sexual Harm Prevention Order and a spot on the National Sex Offenders Register.
The investigation, which the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) took over in January 2024, uncovered a chilling pattern of manipulation. Swaddle methodically built trust with his victims, then weaponized their private information to force compliance. He threatened to leak intimate images or alert schools and parents unless victims produced increasingly harmful content, including acts of self-harm and sexual abuse.
Danielle Pownall, an NCA operations manager, described his tactics as a quest for social validation. “Justin Swaddle targeted young and vulnerable victims all over the world to abuse and scare them into carrying out shocking self-harm and sexual activity, purely to gain popularity with his peers online,” she said. The NCA identified 117 female victims, aged 13 to 17, spanning multiple countries.
The evidence recovered from his devices painted an even darker picture. Investigators found images of children as young as three, alongside graphic material showing the results of his coercion. Some victims had carved his aliases into their own skin. Telegram messages revealed he had even tried to persuade a child to sexually abuse a younger sibling, threatening to expose indecent images if the demand wasn’t met.
The Com, short for Community, operates through a fragmented structure of subgroups, each with its own focus. “Offline Com” encourages property damage and violence, “(S)extortion Com” targets minors for sexual crimes and self-harm, and “Cyber Com” handles network intrusions and ransomware. A subgroup called 764, which surfaced in 2021, specializes in grooming young people to produce explicit content for extortion or sharing among members.
The collective’s reach has been felt far beyond individual victims. It was linked to the September 2023 ransomware attacks on Las Vegas casinos and more recently claimed responsibility for breaches at UK retailers Marks & Spencer, Co-op, and Harrods in April 2025. Law enforcement has been cracking down, with a Europol-led operation called “Project Compass” resulting in 30 arrests and 179 identified suspects in February. A follow-up operation in July flagged 4,340 URLs for removal.
Two alleged leaders of the 764 subgroup, 21-year-old Leonidas Varagiannis and 20-year-old Prasan Nepal, were arrested in April 2025 and now face potential life sentences for running an international child exploitation ring. Swaddle’s case adds another layer to a growing crackdown on a network that has turned online platforms into hunting grounds for the vulnerable.
(Source: BleepingComputer)
