OSINT Training Log: NSW Law Enforcement Solve ‘Satanic’ Crimes In-Session

OSINT Industries delivered training and support to Australian police - leading to two in-session suspect identifications, and the arrest of a ‘satanic’ pedophile ringleader.

Training Objective: OSINT for High-Risk Child Exploitation Cases

“When law enforcement have the right tools…  the right training, the impact is immediate.” – Yoni C., OSINT Specialist and Trainer [Source: OSINT Industries]

September 22nd. New South Wales Police Sex Crimes Unit gathered in Sydney for training with OSINT Industries. Senior OSINT Specialist Yoni C. delivered a training course that would instruct members of the force’s Child Exploitation Internet Unit, Sex Crimes Squad, and State Crime Command on how to better protect Australia’s children and young people with open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques. OSINT Industries’ specialists then flew to Tasmania, delivering the same top-class training to officers from Tasmania’s Hobart Police Child Exploitation Unit, Reportable Offenders & Child Exploitation Targeting and Family & Sexual Violence Command. 

This training has repeatedly produced real-world outcomes. In this case, the effect was very immediate; during one course, two live unsolved cases provided by investigators were solved on the spot. During the session, trainees secured identification for two suspects. One, a Spanish national, and the second a Russian predator - soon arrested for exploiting his own daughter. 

The effects of our industry-leading training was made even clearer when Yoni also played a key role in identifying the alleged ringleader of the ‘satanic pedophile network’, subject of NSW Police’s Strike Force Constantine.

Challenge: Confronting 764-Style Sextortion and Coercive Abuse Networks

"Yo, I’m going to spread all your CP on Telegram… I’m going to traumatize kids. F-ck their lives homie. Let’s see who should we start with?" – A User in a 764 Group Chat [Source: VICE]

Although stranger than fiction, this is not a moral panic. Occult-styled child sextortion rings - so-called 764 or O9A groups - are on the rise.

It’s important to note there are no real ‘satanists’ here. The terms satanic and ritualistic arise descriptively for the symbolic motifs 764-style abuse groups use, and are not indicative of true, formal or organised ‘cults’. 

That said, shocking satanic imagery is the inarguable hallmark of this new online pedophile subculture.

764-style groups operate almost entirely online. Unlike typical child sexual abuse material (CSAM) networks or ‘pedophile rings’, the aim is not collection or exchange of content. Instead, the model is process-driven. Child abuse will be livestreamed on platforms like Discord and Twitch, with real-time coercion and escalation as the central mechanic. The aim is to leave victims degraded and traumatized; in the groups’ terms, deliberately and systematically ‘broken’.

Social media platforms, gaming communities, mental-health forums, LGBTQ+ spaces, and fandoms that attract already marginalised young people are the most vulnerable. Grooming can start with shared vulnerability, or with ‘shock’ exposure to CSAM or gore content, before moving to private or encrypted platforms. From that point onward, demands and terror tactics escalate rapidly, until compliance becomes a survival strategy rather than a choice."

"There was this 13-year-old girl… On stream, she cut her entire body for them. She would do this sometimes daily. They called them “cut shows”... This is the same girl that one leader had convinced to kill her kittens on stream…" - Ali, Former 764 Victim [Source: VICE News]

Soon, victims will be self-harming on camera, carving ‘cut marks’ like usernames or symbols into their skin, ingesting objects, using hard drugs, asphyxiating or burning themselves, participating in humiliation rituals, or abusing pet animals and younger siblings. Ultimately, some are driven to suicide. Others are coerced into recruiting others, creating a cycle of victim-perpetration. 

Every act is streamed, recorded, archived, and reused: to feed the machine as entertainment, as currency for clout within the group, and as a permanent mechanism of control by sextortion. 

Therefore, in another radical departure from traditional rings, the group’s primary goal is no longer sexual gratification. Participants gain status through cruelty and dominance. The deeper the trauma inflicted, the greater the perceived value, and this makes 764-style abuse distinctly dangerous.

But without true believers, why satanism? Simple - it’s scary. Numbers, symbols, and ritualised language are aesthetic weaponry. When victims are too young or vulnerable to know the truth, a pentagram or faux black mass makes 764 abusers seem cosmically unstoppable. Resistance seems futile. What’s more, inflaming scars from the 1980s Satanic Panic makes sure an aura of conspiracy distracts from the core crimes taking place: exploitation, abuse, and the coercive sexual torture of children.

To combat this horror, New South Wales’s State Crime Command’s Child Exploitation Internet Unit (CEIU) established Strike Force Constantine. Established in late 2025, they recognise the repeatable pattern of harm these groups pose. They fight online distribution of child sexual abuse involving ritualistic or satanic themes to protect Australia’s young people.

One peculiarity of 764 cells is that they are small, fragmented, and highly adaptive. When one group is exposed, others will inevitably reappear. New names, new numbers - the abuse stays the same. Digital-native pedophiles make investigation and prosecution a tough task. Moreover, many victims are too terrified to report, convinced that disclosure would destroy what remains of their old lives.

SOCMINT research has proven that most social media platforms are hosting 764 content, even after concrete action has been taken by law enforcement and investigators. This abuse is digital-native, and law enforcement need to align their response accordingly. 

That's why NSW came to OSINT Industries for training.

OSINT Training: Online Child Safety & Digital Investigations for High-Harm Networks 

Course: ‘Online Child Safety & Digital Investigations’

Duration: Three days

Equipment: [CLASSIFIED]

Skills Developed:

The training course delivered here - essential for law enforcement - gives officers OSINT strategies critical to online child protection against digital-native abusers. Specialized techniques like GeoINT, SOCMINT and more are methodologies by which to identify and track sources of CSAM, disband offender groups, and help vulnerable victims before it's too late.

• OSINT Fundamentals for Child Exploitation Investigations: Even if officers knew these basics before they arrived, this refresher session recapped foundational OSINT skills through a child-protection lens - like identifying high-value sources, validating intelligence under time pressure, and dealing safely and ethically with often extreme abuse material.
• Digital Footprints and Behavior Patterns: Trainees learned how to reconstruct both offender and victim trails. Distinguishing benign online activity from grooming, coercion, and escalation tactics is key; this includes mapping victim-offender interaction cycles and identifying markers of sextortion.
• Advanced Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT) for Closed and Semi-Closed Communities: Monitoring and penetrating abuse networks operating on mainstream social media, gaming platforms, and encrypted or invite-only spaces. Officers developed SOCMINT skills like cross-platform identity linkage and detecting migration patterns as groups fracture and reform.
• Dark Web Intelligence: The dark web is a notorious origin haven for child abuse content. Officers were trained in how to safely navigate the darkest parts of the internet, gaining the skills to hunt down bad actors and identify crossover between the surface web and the depths below.
• Extremist-Style Online Network Mapping (764 Methodology): Officers were trained to recognise structural and symbolic hallmarks like numerical identifiers, ritualised language, shock aesthetics, hierarchy signalling, and status-through-cruelty dynamics. Attention was paid to the importance of rapid attribution, clear network mapping, and prioritisation of higher-risk offenders and victims.

Cybersecurity Best Practices: Officers learned to bolster their Operational Security (OpSec). They learned to keep themselves secure and safeguard operations against exposure, retaliation, or compromise.

Exercises: Solving Active Cases In-Session

Our OSINT training, as always, focuses primarily on practical applications, and real-world scenarios. Learning this way gives officers a controlled, supportive environment to perfect the techniques they’re working on. Trainees get to hone their skills in real time - with real impact.

This time with NSW Police, Yoni asked for open cases to work in front of the group. Working collaboratively, his trainees rapidly progressed two active investigations in-session. 

Developing effective strategies for teamwork while completing exercises too, trainees found that, under Yoni's guidance, they could combine their insights and leverage each other's expertise to work faster and better. 

Soon, the first exercise had secured identification of a Spanish national suspected of child exploitation online. The second secured identification of a Russian national, residing in Belgium and suspected of producing and distributing CSAM online. His victims included his own daughter. 

The former case is awaiting further progress. This latter case advanced swiftly following the session, resulting in criminal charges. The immediate operational value of applied OSINT training was obvious. 

However, this wasn’t the only time Yoni would help Australian trainees solve crimes before their OSINT training had even ended.

#OSINT4Good Means: Disrupting Digital-Native Child Exploitation

 "[We] discovered thousands of videos depicting the abuse of live children aged between five and 12 years of age… These ones were particularly devastating in [that] they used symbols and rituals around it in the discussions about abusing children.” – Detective Superintendent Jayne Doherty, Strike Force Constantine. [Source: 9News]

In the suburbs of Waterloo, Strike Force Constantine was breaking down doors. 

All because Yoni had helped Strike Force Constantine identify and arrest Landon Ashton Versace Germanotta-Mills, alleged ringleader of a ‘satanic pedophile network’. 

Thanks to OSINT assistance, three further Sydney men were arrested and charged too; with offences relating to the possession, dissemination and facilitation of access to "satanic child abuse material”. Other charges included seven counts of using a carriage service to share both bestiality material and exploitation material of children from infants to under-12s. 

Six search warrants were secured in total. This amounted to detectives dismantling an “international child sex abuse material ring” in multiple coordinated raids across Waterloo, Ultimo and Malabar. NSW police seized electronic devices containing thousands of “abhorrent” videos and images of “child abuse and the torture of children, involving symbols and rituals linked to Satanism and the occult.”

This was, according to our OSINT Specialist, a “big operation with doors being busted”. Those arrested included a former swimming coach with access to children. NSW Police had been “lost and really wanted to find [the] person” in charge of the ring. With nothing but OSINT Industries and a Telegram ID, Yoni assisted in putting Germanotta-Mills and his group where they belong - behind bars.

None of the accused were granted bail and all are due to appear in court in early 2026.

Training Evaluation

‍“Our mandate is simple: ensure that law enforcement has every intelligence advantage possible when kids’ safety is on the line.” – Nathaniel Fried, CEO & Founder of OSINT Industries. [Source: OSINT Industries]

All these officers left their course invigorated, equipped with a new future-ready set of OSINT safeguarding skills. They demonstrated an impressive grasp of actionable practical knowledge - even when getting to grips with real, sensitive, terrifying cases.

The paedophiles Strike Force Constantine takes down are best described as ‘extremely online’. At 26, Germanotta-Mills is a member of Gen Z. He operated a self-described “independent investigative journalism platform”, claiming to investigate issues in "child protection... [and] public interest harm… especially where institutions have failed to act.” 

The irony is palpable, but underlines a vital truth. Law enforcement catch up with competent, covert, digital-native criminals. As the successes in this program demonstrate, OSINT training is what left these Aussie cops well-equipped to win. 

See immediate impact with OSINT Industries Training. 

“The New South Wales Police Force is showing that OSINT saves lives, and it’s a privilege to stand with them.” – Yoni C., OSINT Specialist and Trainer. [Source: OSINT Industries]

Be part of the fightback against online exploitation, and give your department the tools they need to win. If your agency wants the same operational edge - the same speed, accuracy, and real-world skills - get free access and tailored OSINT training programs for law enforcement worldwide. 

Book a consultation now.