Europol and its law enforcement partners identified 4,340 URLs for removal during a multi-week operation in June and July 2026, targeting content associated with The Com network. The Com, short for community, represents a loosely organized collection of online groups whose predominantly young members engage in activities ranging from hacking and digital extortion to real-world violence including shootings and stabbings.
The recent Referral Action Days operation aimed to dismantle The Com’s online infrastructure and halt the spread of recruitment propaganda. This effort forms part of Project Compass, a broader initiative that launched in 2025 involving law enforcement agencies across the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union member states.
Which Countries Participated in the Operation?
Investigators from nine European nations participated in the June and July Referral Action Days: Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. These agencies worked to identify and flag content used by various groups linked to The Com network for recruiting members and grooming young victims through social media platforms, gaming services, and messaging applications.
What Types of Content Were Flagged?
The flagged URLs contained extremely disturbing material, including violent videos and images depicting self-harm, suicide, child sexual abuse material, animal cruelty, and violent attacks. According to Europol, the network operates on a hierarchy where users gain higher status by producing or extorting increasingly extreme and harmful content, often livestreamed on social media while online observers encourage the activities.
Specific content types included so-called blood walls—paintings made with blood displaying the extorter’s alias and group affiliation—and cut-signs, where victims are forced to carve the extorter’s name into their bodies. The removed materials also encompassed videos of street attacks and arson, instructional manuals for committing violent attacks, guides on grooming and extorting vulnerable minors, and instructions for doxxing and swatting.
How Serious Is the Threat?
Europol’s European Counter Terrorism Centre has received hundreds of investigation requests from member states and other partners over the past two years regarding crimes linked to The Com. The agency characterizes the online network as a global threat, with particular concern for minors who serve as both victims and perpetrators.
In July 2025, the FBI issued warnings about In Real Life (IRL) Com, a subset that had become increasingly brazen in soliciting swat-for-hire and violence-as-a-service operations. The UK National Crime Agency similarly warned about The Com recruiting teenage boys for criminal activities ranging from cyber fraud and ransomware to child sexual abuse.
Source: The Register