The threat from teenage boys drawn into “sadistic” online networks has surged with reports up sixfold in two years, the National Crime Agency has warned.
Teenagers are being drawn into online gangs that compete to commit harrowing crimes including child abuse, fraud and sharing extreme violent and misogynistic material.
The NCA, which investigates serious and organised crime threats to the country, said the risks from teenage boys who become criminalised online in their bedrooms is “absolutely a priority for the country”.
They have called for parents, police and educators to help in the fight against teenage threats after reports relating to so-called "com networks" increased sixfold in the UK between 2022 and 2024.
Analysts estimate that thousands of teenagers – including offenders and victims – based in the UK and other Western countries have exchanged millions of messages relating to sexual and physical abuse.
The online groups are causing young people to “develop a dangerous propensity for extreme violence”, they warned, with many becoming “desensitised and radicalised”.
It comes after last week Nicholas Prosper was jailed for 49 years for murdering his family and plotting to become the deadliest school shooter in history after being drawn into an “internet wormhole”.
His family said he had become increasingly isolated and they had no idea of the atrocity the violence-obsessed 18-year-old was planning.
The NCA’s annual National Strategic Assessment, published on Tuesday, described the groups as networks on social media or messaging platforms that "routinely share harmful content and extremist or misogynistic rhetoric".
It said: "Extreme and illicit imagery depicting violence, gore and child sexual abuse material is frequently shared amongst users, normalising and desensitising participants to increasingly extreme content and behaviours.
"'Com' networks use extreme coercion to manipulate their victims, who are often children, into harming or abusing themselves, their siblings or pets, and re-victimising them by doxing or appropriation by other offenders.”
Members are usually young men “motivated by status, power, control, misogyny, sexual gratification or an obsession with extreme or violent material”.
"The emergence of these types of online platforms are almost certainly causing some individuals, especially younger people, to develop a dangerous propensity for extreme violence,” the report warned.
The threat assessment was written before Netflix’s hit show Adolescence sparked a national conversation about the impact of the internet on children and teenagers.
However, James Babbage, the NCA’s director general of threats, said the drama highlights how important it is for parents to speak to their children about what they are doing online.
“For me, the Netflix show Adolescence does a great job of highlighting just how much of an impact these online conversations, even simple emojis, have on young people's lives and their self-esteem,” he said.
“There is a moment in the show where that penny drops for this detective, himself a distracted parent. And for me, that really highlights that we – all adults, parents, carers – need to take time to speak with the children in our lives and really connect with them about what they're doing online.
“If they're going out, we might ask where they're going and who with so why wouldn't we do the same when they're online? Online, time is not necessarily safe time.”
Rob Jones, director general of operations, said that 10 years ago investigators were largely seeing adults exploiting children, but this kind of peer-on-peer abuse is an “emerging threat”.
Many share increasingly disturbing content in order to compete with one another and achieve notoriety.
The NCA’s director general Graeme Biggar added: "This is a hugely complex and deeply concerning phenomenon.
"Young people are being drawn into these sadistic and violent online gangs where they are collaborating at scale to inflict, or incite others to commit, serious harm.
"These groups are not lurking on the dark web, they exist in the same online world and platforms young people use on a daily basis.
"It is especially concerning to see the impact this is having on young girls who are often groomed into hurting themselves and in some cases, even encouraged to attempt suicide."
Assistant Chief Constable Alastair Simpson, national policing lead for child sexual exploitation and abuse, said the growth of com networks is “hugely concerning”.
"Policing will always play its part, but social media providers have a clear role to play in monitoring and regulating their platforms to root out this abhorrent criminal behaviour and make all online spaces safe for children and adults,” he added.
Elsewhere, the assessment found that the UK is falling prey to international criminals from China, Russia and Iran.
"Chinese national offenders are linked to cyber, drugs, fraud, illicit finance, modern slavery and human trafficking and organised immigration crime offending that impacts on the UK," the report found.
It added: "It is likely that the already high threat from Chinese-speaking money laundering networks in the UK continues to grow.
"As well as moving cash for UK criminals, they help UK-based Chinese nationals to evade Chinese currency controls, which enables them to invest in the UK."
Iran and Russia also allow certain crimes carried out from within their jurisdictions against the UK, including ransomware groups, which are out of the reach of Western law enforcement.
Some countries use offences including cybercrime, drug trafficking and money laundering to support their own objectives or evade sanctions, the assessment said, including North Korea.
Ketamine use has risen sharply in the UK, the report warned. Wastewater analysis by the Home Office showed ketamine consumption soared by 85 per cent in January to April 2023 compared with the previous year. Cocaine use also rose 7 per cent, but heroin use dropped 11 per cent.
The number of adults who needed medical treatment after taking ketamine rose by five times from 426 in 2014-15 to 2,211 in 2022-23.
It is cheaper than cocaine but can cause severe health problems including damage referred to as "ketamine bladder", as well as causing a dissociative state when taken, which could leave the user at risk of physical harm, the NCA said.
