At Liberty Law, our mission is to confront injustice, support survivors, and demand accountability from systems that too often fail to protect the most vulnerable. This month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrests and filing of federal charges against two individuals, Prasan Nepal and Leonidas Varagiannis, accused of leading a global child exploitation enterprise known as 764. The scope of the allegations is staggering. The harm described is both digital and deeply human.
The criminal complaint lays out in harrowing detail how this network allegedly used encrypted platforms and digital anonymity to target, groom, and exploit vulnerable children across the globe. But beyond the legal facts, this case forces us to reckon with the reality that exploitation is evolving faster than our systems are, and the cost is being paid by children who should have been protected.
Liberty Law is currently conducting its own independent investigation into this matter. We are reviewing the complaint, assessing public reports, and speaking with survivors and their families. We are committed to pursuing civil accountability where appropriate and ensuring that survivors have access to the legal support, safety, and care they deserve.
When Technology Is Used to Harm — and Systems Fail to Respond
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the 764 network coordinated the exploitation of minors through encrypted apps, with members allegedly producing and trading explicit content as a form of currency. Victims were reportedly manipulated into creating degrading content under threat, including self-harm and acts of violence against themselves or others. Some of the group’s tactics, as outlined in the criminal complaint, included grooming children struggling with mental health issues and coercing them through digital manipulation until they believed they had no choice.
This is not just a case of child pornography. It is a case about control, ideology, and intentional harm. The network was reportedly fueled by a violent extremist worldview that sought to corrupt and dismantle what they saw as “civilized society” through the abuse of the most vulnerable.
This was organized. This was deliberate. And this was allowed to grow in digital spaces where moderation, regulation, and oversight have been historically weak or nonexistent.
A New Kind of Exploitation Demands a New Kind of Justice
The exploitation described in this case doesn’t fit the traditional public narrative of trafficking. There are no vans, no borders, no handcuffs. Instead, there are chatrooms, group codes, encrypted platforms, and manipulation that begins with a message and ends in trauma.
What this case makes painfully clear is that abuse has evolved, but our justice system and society’s understanding of exploitation have not kept pace. Too often, people don’t believe abuse is real unless it’s visible. But many of the harms described here are invisible by design, psychological, digital, and deeply embedded in the emerging online culture.
Survivors in these cases may never be identified. Some may never disclose what happened to them. Some may not survive.
This is why the legal system must shift from punishment after the fact to prevention, intervention, and survivor-centered accountability with tools, laws, and infrastructure that meet the digital age.
Criminal Charges Are Necessary — But Never Enough
We recognize and commend the work of federal agents and prosecutors who brought this case forward. It is a critical first step.
But we also know that criminal charges are not the whole story. Survivors deserve justice that goes beyond convictions. They need access to legal options that support their healing. They need mental health care, civil protections, and a system that doesn’t retraumatize them for seeking help.
That’s why we’re pursuing our own civil investigation, because criminal law often cannot address the full scope of harm. Civil legal action can offer survivors privacy, autonomy, and the chance to hold accountable not just individuals, but also platforms and institutions that failed to act.
When Accountability Means More Than a Headline
We must not let this case become just another headline. The alleged behavior of 764, recruiting abusers, compiling “Lorebooks,” demanding increasingly extreme content for status, was sustained by a culture of desensitization and digital virality. This didn’t happen in the shadows. It happened in plain sight, inside unregulated spaces where abuse became spectacle.
The systems that allowed this to flourish, legal, technological, and cultural, must be held to account. We must demand stronger laws, platform transparency, proactive enforcement, and trauma-informed education that teaches young people what coercion looks like online.
Justice must be redefined. It cannot stop at punishment. It must include prevention. It must include healing. And it must include a commitment to never looking away, even when the harm is hard to face.
A Commitment Moving Forward
Liberty Law will continue to investigate. We will continue to support survivors. And we will continue to challenge the institutions that have allowed abuse to thrive unchecked.
We believe survivors. We believe in justice that is survivor-centered, trauma-informed, and unrelenting in its pursuit of truth. And we will not stop until that justice is not only possible, but practiced.
In solidarity and with resolve,
Micha Star Liberty
