Com Groups - Briefing by Merseyside Police Cyber Dependent Crime Unit

Merseyside Police Cyber Dependent Crime Unit have developed an awareness presentation (supported by the National Police Chief Council) to upskill professionals and increase awareness of Com groups - this is a rising threat and police are seeing an increasing number of cases in Merseyside. 

Com groups are groups linked to themes such as sadistic online extortion, violent extremism, and child sexual abuse. Examples include sex crimes, violence against persons, property, animals and the encouragement of self-harm and suicide. They actively look to identify, target, groom and coerce individuals into committing acts of violence against themselves to the extent of serious self-harm or suicide, as well as the torture and murder of animals.  In addition to this they will regularly be involved in the sexual exploitation of individuals.  They are regularly seen to target children through social media or online games, before taking them to private chats on other messaging platforms. Networks we see being actively used to target children include TikTok, Roblox, Facebook, Snapchat, Telegram, Discord, Twitter (X). 

The overall aim of this session is to increase awareness of the issue, thereby improving the identification of, and response to safeguarding concerns involving online com groups. Additional benefits include increased intelligence gathering and supporting the identification of emerging offending trends.

Dates