A 19-year-old man from San Antonio pleaded guilty Friday to multiple crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children while acting as an administrator and leader of 8884, a splinter group of the violent extremist collective known as 764.
Alexis Aldair Chavez faces up to 60 years in prison for racketeering, distribution and possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). He was arrested and has been detained without bail since October 2024.
Chavez began associating with 764 as a minor in 2022 when a co-conspirator introduced him to 7997, one of many 764 offshoots affiliated with The Com. Authorities describe The Com as a sprawling nihilistic violent extremist network of thousands of people, typically between 11 and 25 years old, engaged in a growing online threat to coerce vulnerable children to produce CSAM of themselves, gore material, self mutilation, sibling abuse, animal abuse and other acts of violence.
“Chavez led a group of online predators whose ultimate purpose is to destroy our society,” Sue Bai, principal deputy assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement. “They tried to achieve that heinous goal by desensitizing innocent children to violence — coercing them to perform gruesome and harmful acts against themselves and animals — with the hope of encouraging further violence and spreading chaos.”
Prosecutors said Chavez “earned the right” to participate in 7997 chat rooms by killing his cat and posting a video of the crime for others to view. He later groomed multiple victims to blackmail and coerce additional victims, all to increase reputation within the group’s ranks, according to federal court records.
Chavez attempted to coerce a girl to commit suicide and blackmailed another girl into self-mutiliation, animal torture and illicit content production in late 2023. He later worked with multiple co-conspirators and blackmailed some of his victims to coerce other girls to degrade themselves on camera and produce CSAM.
The indictment filed against Chavez in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas details a series of horrifying crimes he committed with co-conspirators and some of his victims.
Separately, Chavez coerced multiple minors to harm themselves or engage in various acts of depravity on video chats in the 8884 channel.
“The depraved acts described in the indictment are very normal for these people,” Allison Nixon, chief research officer at Unit 221B, told CyberScoop.
Nixon, who has studied domestic and English-speaking cybercrime and tracked its rise for more than a decade, said 764 is a “very important tar pit for certain rare, risky personalities” that is likely worthy of scientific study.
“8884 and 7997 are part of a homogenous 764 copycat soup. All of these groups start to blend together,” she said. “Most of these actors are motivated by attention seeking, and their culture is based on competing to be the worst. Ironically, they all end up being the same.”
When the FBI executed a search warrant at Chavez’s residence in July 2024, prosecutors said he came out the backdoor and threw his phone over a neighbor’s fence in an attempt to hide evidence.
Chavez’s guilty plea follows a year of heightened law enforcement activity, which has netted arrests of multiple alleged 764 leaders and members.
Two alleged leaders of 764, Leonidas Varagiannis and Prasan Nepal, were arrested and charged for directing and distributing CSAM in April. The two men are accused of exploiting at least eight minor victims, some as young as 13 years old, and face charges that carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Baron Cain Martin, of Tucson, Arizona, allegedly joined the child sextortion ring as early as 2019, eventually acting as a leader until his arrest late last year. Martin faces 29 charges and, if convicted, up to life in prison.
Tony Christopher Long, of California, pleaded not guilty last month to multiple charges carrying a maximum penalty up to 69 years in prison related to his alleged involvement in the nihilistic violent extremist group.
Erik Lee Madison, of Maryland, was arrested in November and is accused of victimizing at least five children this fall, including one as young as 13 at the time. His alleged criminality dates back to 2020 when he was a minor.
“All of the 764 cases I’ve seen presented by law enforcement have been high quality and successful, and I hope this work can continue,” Nixon said.
Chavez’s sentencing is set for March 25, 2026. You can read the full indictment below.