(Ken Silva, Headline USA) FBI Director Kashyap Patel and former deputy director Dan Bongino have both touted the bureau’s efforts to tackle the group known as “764”—an online network of chatrooms that promote Satanism, pedophilia, self-harm, animal abuse and other heinous acts. The House Oversight Committee now wants a briefing on the FBI’s work.
“The Committee is requesting a staff-level briefing to understand the FBI’s investigations and apprehensions of those in the 764 network,” House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., and Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., said in a letter to Patel on Tuesday.
“The disturbing tactics attributed to this network—grooming, manipulating, and blackmailing of minors—underscore a serious and continuously evolving threat to children and families across the United States. These harms demand rigorous oversight and an evaluation of whether existing federal countermeasures are effective and adequately resourced to combat these elusive online perpetrators.”
764 History
Headline USA has been covering the 764 network ever since the DOJ announced its first case in 2023.
The government’s crackdown on the Satanic pedophile network started two years before that in November 2021, when the FBI arrested 764 member Angel Almeida. Details of Almeida’s 764 activities weren’t made public until records about his case were unsealed late 2023. Court records showed that the FBI had an undercover embedded in Almeida’s network since 2021, raising questions about the bureau’s silence and lack of cases over a two-year span.
Are they going to ask why the FBI had an undercover agent in 764 in 2021 but didn't announce anything about the group for 2 more years? https://t.co/iMDGofDLIn pic.twitter.com/YNBhfDiEPW
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) February 17, 2026
In February 2024, 764 received more national attention when U.S. Marshals arrested 764 member Kyle Spitze on child porn charges. Spitze had previously made national news when his stepfather shot him in the ear while Spitze was recording him. That bizarre and disturbing story can be read here.
Several other arrests followed Spitze. More recently, 764 has been linked to two school shootings and two more alleged near-shootings.
The first shooting occurred in January 2025, when a 17-year-old black student named Solomon Henderson allegedly opened fire—killing a female student and wounding one other before killing himself.
Henderson apparently operated the Twitter/X account @GroidCell, which is linked to the Satanic 764 pedophile network. His manifesto also claimed that he had connections with other school shooters, including 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, who opened fire during a study hall in December 2024.
Additionally, when investigators searched Rupnow’s phone, they found that she was part of a network of extremist and sadistic chatrooms, and that she was communicating with many other people.
One of those people was 20-year-old Alexander Paffendorf, who was also allegedly talking to Rupnow online about committing a mass shooting. Last May, a court reportedly granted a three-year gun violence restraining order against Paffendorf, which bars him from owning firearms for three years, according to Fox 5 in San Diego. Paffendorf has not been criminally charged over the matter.
Along with Paffendorf, Rupnow was also found to have been communicating with 22-year-old Damien Blade Allen. According to a detective’s affidavit released last May, the two were in a “conspiracy” to commit mass shootings.
Allen was arrested on April 27, just before he was about to carry out his intended shooting, according to law enforcement.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
