AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett: “Crimefluencers … are motivated by anarchy and hurting others, with most of their victims pre-teen or teenage girls.” Photo: AFP.
Australian Federal Police have identified 59 alleged offenders as being members of online networks that glorify and carry out sadistic crimes.
Working with law enforcement partners in Australia and overseas, the AFP has moved quickly against the offenders, resulting in nine international and three domestic arrests.
In Australia, those arrested were aged 17 to 20.
New Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett has painted a confronting picture of the changing nature of crime in Australia, adding that her organisation has stopped cases of ongoing victimisation of children in Australia.
In her first address to the National Press Club of Australia, Commissioner Barrett also outlined how the AFP is developing an AI tool to decode Gen Z and Alpha slang and emojis to crack down on online exploitation and fight what she described as “crimefluencers”.
“There are decentralised online crime networks and loosely affiliated individuals in Australia and offshore who are glorifying crime online, such as sadistic online exploitation, cyber-attacks and violence,” she said.
“These crimes are now spilling into the real world and have real-world consequences.
“While these networks do not have a centralised hierarchy or a single ideology, they are prolific and are attracted to violent extremism, nihilism, sadism, Nazism and satanism.
“They are crimefluencers, and are motivated by anarchy and hurting others, with most of their victims pre-teen or teenage girls.”
The Commissioner would not name the networks, so as not to “validate the notoriety they crave”, but said they are a new and disturbing front in traditional gender-based violence.
Overwhelmingly, the perpetrators are young boys and young men from Western English-speaking backgrounds. And overwhelmingly, she said, young girls are the victims, and they are being intimidated, exploited and controlled.
“Typically, these young girls have low self-esteem, mental health disorders, a history of self-harm, eating disorders or other attributes that may lead them to seek connection online,” Commissioner Barrett said.
“This can make them more vulnerable to being targeted directly by these networks.
“The motivation of individuals within these networks is not financial nor is it for sexual gratification. This is purely for their amusement, for fun, or to be popular online without fully understanding the consequences.
“These groups have a similar culture to multi-player, online gaming culture, and hunt, stalk and draw in victims from a range of online platforms.
“To be accepted into these networks, the perpetrators often have to pass a test or undertake a task, such as providing videos of the self-harm of others, or other gory content.”
Young men groom victims online and then force them to perform serious acts of violence on themselves, their siblings, others, or even their pets.
Commissioner Barrett said it was a new, twisted type of gamification, in which perpetrators reach a status or higher level in their group when they provide more content showing increasingly extreme acts of depravity and sadism.
In some cases, perpetrators trade their victims with each other, she said, just like in an online game.
Once traded, a new perpetrator can control their new victim.
The AFP is setting up Taskforce Pompilid to use the full powers of the AFP to target these offenders.
The taskforce’s mission is to identify, disrupt and dismantle online criminal ecosystems that target Australians “wherever they operate, however they hide, and whoever they harm”.
It will expose facilitators and remove the anonymity that shields offenders from law enforcement.
AFP members are currently working with Microsoft to develop a prototype AI tool that will interpret emojis and Gen Z and Alpha slang in encrypted communications and chat groups to identify sadistic online exploitation.
Commissioner Barrett will establish an AFP Social Cohesion Consultative Board in the first quarter of next year to bring together community leaders, youth, and non-government organisations to prevent crime, promote education, build partnerships, and achieve agreed solutions.
“I’m putting out the call for leaders of faith, youth leaders, mental health experts, diaspora groups, those with connections to indigenous Australians and not-for-profit groups that would see value in contributing to an AFP consultative board,” she said.
“I am looking for solutions that find common ground by using trusted community voices to take a leadership position that prevents crime and protects people who do not traditionally trust police.”
The board will work closely with the AFP’s Community Liaison Teams.
Following the Commissioner’s press club address, Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley both separately addressed Federal Parliament to endorse the AFP’s initiatives.
