IRL Com recruits teens for real-life stabbings, shootings, FBI warns
- Reference: 1753303570
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/07/23/irl_com_recruits_teens/
- Source link:
In a Wednesday alert, the [1]federal cops warned that In Real Life (IRL) Com, a subset of the underground cybercrime crew The Com offering swat-for-hire and violence-as-a-service, has become increasingly brazen in its real-life violent crime.
The FBI's alert follows a [2]similar warning from the UK National Crime Agency about a "deeply concerning" trend of The Com recruiting teenage boys to commit a range of criminal acts, from cyber fraud and ransomware to child sexual abuse.
[3]
The Com is a loosely knit band of primarily English-speaking miscreants whose members span the globe. It's made up of several interconnected networks of hackers, SIM swappers, and extortionists [4]including Scattered Spider , which security researchers and law enforcement count as one of The Com's subgroups.
[5]
[6]
Many of The Com's members are minors, primarily teenage boys. The members of the IRL Com subset "typically have a shared interest, ideology, or goal and work together, adding others to the group and splintering when necessary, to achieve their mission," the FBI noted.
Their criminal acts extend beyond the digital realm, and they post prices online to conduct real-world criminal services including shootings, kidnappings, armed robbery, stabbings, physical assault, and bricking. Groups offering violence-as-a-service solicit individuals via social media and messaging apps, in some cases recruiting very young members and then blackmailing them into committing serious crimes.
[7]Three Brits charged over 'active shooter threats' swattings in US, Canada
[8]Teens used encrypted chats to recruit for 'violence as a service' murder ring, Europol says
[9]Scattered Spider, BlackCat claw their way back from criminal underground
[10]Ex-US soldier who Googled 'can hacking be treason' pleads guilty to extortion
Finnish police in May warned people about [11]The Com luring and manipulating children and young people into using "extreme violence against themselves and others."
Last month, seven people, including a 14-year-old, were arrested or surrendered to Danish authorities after allegedly using encrypted messaging apps to hire other teenagers for contract killings in one of these [12]violence-as-a-service operations .
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The FBI's security bulletin specifically calls out IRL Com subgroups that offer swat-for-hire services. Swatting involves hoaxers falsely reporting shootings at someone's residence or calling in bomb threats to trigger massive armed police responses at the victims' homes.
While various subgroups of The Com use swatting to achieve different goals — sometimes it's the result of infighting among members — IRL Com groups use swatting to earn money, gain credibility, and keep members in line, according to the feds.
"The more attention a swatting incident gets, the more attention the member receives from the group," the FBI says. "Additionally, leaders from IRL Com groups may use swatting to ensure members of the group remain obedient. When members of the IRL Com group disobey orders or refuse to comply with demands, the member or the member's family may become the target of swatting."
[14]
The FBI alert also follows a joint investigation conducted alongside UK cops that resulted in arrests of three young Brits accused of [15]active-shooter-threat swatting calls in the US and Canada between October 2022 and April 2023. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2025/PSA250723-2
[2] https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/sadistic-online-harm-groups-putting-people-at-unprecedented-risk-warns-the-nca
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aIZNPD419fmMafz2_HPU9gAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/04/fake_it_support_calls_hit/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aIZNPD419fmMafz2_HPU9gAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aIZNPD419fmMafz2_HPU9gAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/02/three_brits_charged_over_us_swattings/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/21/teen_arrested_murder_for_hire/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/08/scattered_spider_blackcat_return/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/15/solider_hacking_guilty/
[11] https://www.suojellaanlapsia.fi/en/post/police-concerned-about-international-extremely-violent-the-com-network-victims-mainly-children
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/21/teen_arrested_murder_for_hire/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aIZNPD419fmMafz2_HPU9gAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aIZNPD419fmMafz2_HPU9gAAAAM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/02/three_brits_charged_over_us_swattings/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Well...
..maybe if the US police didn't go into situations like a military group trying to clear a house full of enemy soldiers, then swatting wouldn't be an issue.
But no, best go in, shoot the place up and if you kill innocent people, who cares, it's not like you'll be held accountable.
Re: Well...
Agreed.
>> "recruits children and teens for contract shootings, kidnappings, and other real-life violent crimes" reads like an advert for police recruits in the USA. And in the UK too for that matter.
If you want to get away with crime become a police officer.
I want to eliminate a cewtain, elusive wascawy wabbit.
DM if intewested..
-Anon
Big redundancy payout from the [1]skwoo dwivuh company, eh?
[1] https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fwlmthtulxwxb1.jpg
Taken.. Internet version
" I have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for ...
[interruption] Schmoopkins, I brought you a PBJ sandwich.
...Mom! I told you to knock!"
Shirley
Surely this is not the government working hand in hand with big corporations to enslave swathes of society, remove aspiration and prosperity to realise fantasies of rich control freaks.
If young people see no future, then what do they expect is going to happen? Are they going to obediently work in a warehouse or franchise or are they going to say "F*ck it"?
FBI and the other clown agencies better should pull their heads out of their ar*es.
Re: Shirley
The "FBI and other clown agencies" are not in charge of social/governmental change, or lack thereof.
Re: Shirley
When the system creates desperation by design, and agencies focus solely on the fallout - while never questioning those who engineered the conditions - they stop being neutral enforcers. They become part of the containment strategy.
Re: Shirley
You really ought to do something about your monomania. Just as the article about North Korean scam workers wasn't about the level of payment for the average worker, nor is the choice from some people who, by the article's description, probably aren't of working age yet to commit violence about the level of payment for the average worker. There are problems in life that aren't about wage rates, and even when a connection can be made, there are reasons to consider both of those rather than jumping straight for your favorite. The result of taking this sharp turn on every article is that any points you have that are actually convincing get drowned out by the "what is that guy's deal" thought that goes through my head every time you divert, and how not just I found your argument so unrelated that you came off as a supporter of North Korea last time, even though I still think that's not what you were trying to say.
Re: Shirley
You're missing the forest for the trees. I'm not excusing violence - I'm pointing out its root. When a system traps people in precarity, strips them of agency, and offers them zero prospects beyond wage slavery or debt, some will turn to chaos. That’s predictable human behaviour.
You say “not everything is about wages.” True. It’s about power, purpose, and belonging - all of which have been gutted by a system optimised for extraction, not prosperity. If you think teenagers committing contract violence has no relation to the socioeconomic environment they’ve grown up in, you’re the one being reductive.
And if your takeaway from a structural critique is “this guy must support North Korea,” you’ve told on yourself...
Re: Shirley
And you see everything as a forest, even if it's a single tree in a field. The people committing this crime may have lots of reasons to do it, but some of them are not poor, not revolutionaries, they think it's fun. Swatting was and probably still is popular among videogaming communities by people, often very young ones, who did not realize what would be the result of their actions. It was basically just a higher-end violent prank because the people carrying it out didn't consider how possible it is to end in murder, and that worked a lot of the time because, although some of these events do end in deaths, a lot of them just have everyone in the house and probably most of the neighbors absolutely terrified, property damage, but no deaths or injuries. People who think of this as a prank are not doing it out of desperation for the job they don't think they'll be able to get, and many of them are at the stage in life where they're not thinking much about their future plans.
Re: Shirley
You’re shifting the goalposts. Of course not every offender fits a single profile. No one said they did. But look deeper: many of these networks recruit vulnerable kids, often from bleak backgrounds, who then get pulled into crime and sometimes profit from it - which doesn’t erase where they came from. Sure, some hangers-on are just adrenaline junkies, but they’ve always existed. That’s not the point.
The real issue is a system that steadily removes hope and agency for large swathes of the population, then acts shocked when some of them go feral. Focusing only on individual thrill-seekers is like diagnosing smoke and ignoring the fire.
If the "operatives" (for want of a better term) or their families can be swatted for disobedience, that implies they have terrible opsec and/or some central database list with those details.
How has that not leaked by now?
Only the low-level people, the ones stupid enough to go commit the violence themselves, need to have their names and addresses stored in a database. They likely provided that information so the people with money could mail them things, whether that's payments or supplies. As long as the high-level people don't broadcast that database, the rest of the people won't be easily identified. Just because one person has terrible opsec doesn't mean everyone does, and in this situation, the person who logically should have the best opsec is probably the person with the database you want to see leaked, so it's not that surprising that it hasn't been. As crime that starts online goes, this kind of operation is one of the most dangerous to the people carrying it out, so we're not dealing with the smartest people except, possibly, for the anonymous ones directing it from afar and not getting themselves in danger when they want someone hurt.
Kids these days eh
Never satisfied.
When I was a spotty teen, we thought cadging the odd beer or a random bit of shop lifting was outrageous behaviour.
Black Mirror - Shut Up and Dance
Another Black Mirror prophecy has come true.