FBI Agent Informs Jerseyville Community On ‘Nihilistic Violent Extremism’

Jake Griffin from FBI Springfield Office shares valuable insights into online extremism during presentation to parents and public in JCHS auditorium.

Dalton Brown, News Reporter

Sep 10, 2025 2:15 PM Sep 10, 2025 2:59 PM

Save

Listen to the story

JERSEYVILLE – FBI Special Agent Jake Griffin visited Jersey Community High School (JCHS) on Tuesday to inform parents and community members about the growing threat of “Nihilistic Violent Extremism” (NVE), online recruitment methods, and more.

Get The Latest News!

Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.

The hour-long presentation in the JCHS auditorium highlighted certain NVE groups and their methods of recruiting children and teenagers through popular online platforms. Also discussed were possible NVE-affiliated signs for parents to look out in their children’s behavior and online activity.

Griffin’s main goal with the presentation was to “arm” the community “with knowledge” about the emerging threat of NVE – a concept that even Griffin, a former New York cop of 10 years and current Hostage Negotiation Team leader and terrorism investigator with the FBI Springfield Office, found difficult to grasp at first.

“Before I started looking at this threat, I would have told all of you … that there wasn’t much I couldn’t solve,” Griffin said. “A year ago, this threat presented itself to our nation and our globe … I found it very difficult to identify signs before something happened.

“We investigate it, we combat it on that angle – but my other angle is to speak to community members such as yourselves, to give you signs and arm you with knowledge so that when you see signs of someone who might be in these groups, who might be ready to commit some type of violent act, that you’re prepared and can say something before it happens.”

What Is “Nihilistic Violent Extremism?”

“Nihilistic Violent Extremism” refers to the belief that the state of the world is so terrible that nothing matters, including the lives of others; Griffin said those who subscribe to this belief seek to cause societal collapse through acts of violence and “burn it all down.”

NVE groups may partake in “Sadistic Online Exploitation” (SOE), which involves targeting vulnerable minors and convincing, pressuring, or extorting them into producing Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), committing acts of self-harm, engaging in acts of animal cruelty, and more.

These groups often recruit new members through “militant accelerationism,” a set of tactics designed to put pressure on societal divisions, such as race, through violence to accelerate societal collapse. Griffin said white supremacy is at the root of this ideology, stating: “They believe that everyone who’s not of their true white supremacist beliefs should be removed from the Earth.”

Groups who engage in militant accelerationism typically dress in tactical or military-style gear, sometimes employing the use of face masks with skulls and radiation symbols. Griffin said these groups dress like this “for a very specific reason.”

“They know it attracts young, white men to their cause,” Griffin said. “Their recruitment numbers go through the roof with kids between the ages of 12 and 17, because they like what they’re wearing – because the people in the [video] games they play wear that. So this group knows that by wearing this, they can at least get a child or a teenager into the door, and then start to radicalize them with their beliefs.”

One such NVE group, “No Lives Matter,” creates “kill guides” with specific instructions on not only how to commit acts of mass violence and what weapons to use, but also how to conceal evidence and mislead investigators. Fueling the creation of these guides are chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, which Griffin said can provide bad actors with instant answers on how to create explosives with household objects and more.

At one point during the presentation, Griffin dropped several stapled stacks of paper to the ground, stating each was a “kill guide” the FBI had seized from central Illinois residents within the past year. After dropping the last guide to the ground, Griffin said: “If you didn’t believe me that this is in your community, start.”

Discord and the Origins of “764”

Griffin described how of one of the largest and most infamous NVE groups, known as “764,” first began and set the blueprint for similar groups that have followed.

764 was created by Bradley Cadenhead in 2021 and started on Discord, an online messaging platform. Discord “servers” basically serve as large group chats, and can be divided into “channels” by topics or other categories.

While the vast majority of Discord servers are dedicated to discussing harmless, completely legal topics (such as video games), others center around NVE, SOE, and other harmful tactics and ideologies. Some – such as 764 – start out as harmless before shifting dramatically. Members of NVE groups may join one Discord server and lure potential recruits onto another server, or onto another platform entirely.

As an example, Griffin said an NVE group member may post actual war footage in a Discord server dedicated to the first-person shooter video game Call of Duty. Whoever interacts or expresses interest in the video may be invited to “see more” on another server or platform. From there, kids and teenagers can be groomed into committing acts of violence.

Article continues after sponsor message

Connect with Riverbend Readers - advertise with us today!!

In the case of 764, Bradley typically spent 19 hours a day online as the host of a Discord server under a different name which was, at first, intended for discussing general life topics. As the server gained over 100,000 members, Bradley sought to monetize his following by directly messaging certain members and extorting them after gaining their trust, in some cases even leading them on romantically.

“He starts to say, ‘Send me a compromising photo,’ and a lot of them do. Specifically a lot of young women, as young as 6 to as old as 18,” Griffin said. “No one knows. Her parents don’t know, [her] family doesn’t know this is happening.”

After amassing several compromising photos, Bradley then messaged each person depicted and demanded they pay him $50 – if not, he threatened to release their photos to the entire Discord server and across social media. Several who did not pay him had their photos released to the rest of the Discord, which Griffin said not only attracted pedophiles to the server, but fueled Bradley’s notoriety among his followers.

While Griffin said Bradley has since been arrested, other members of 764 who idolized Bradley and his actions have since formed other groups, such as No Lives Matter, with similar recruitment methods and NVE ideologies. This underscores the need to remain vigilant and take action when certain signs present themselves.

Ways To Combat NVE

The first step to curbing NVE behavior is recognizing commons signs of involvement in one of these groups. Changes in appearance, behavior, and habits concerning online activity may be indicators. Another may be anonymous gifts delivered to one’s home, or forms of self-harm that involve cutting or burning names, symbols, or patterns into one’s skin. In some cases, shrines with occult elements have been found in members’ bedrooms.

Some of these signs may pose no cause for concern on their own; just because your teenager dyed their hair doesn’t automatically mean they’ve been radicalized into violent extremism. But multiple signs presented in combination may warrant further consideration: are they acting like themselves, or has their overall demeanor shifted dramatically? Do they seem unusually withdrawn and “glued” to the internet, actively avoiding real-world social situations? Griffin emphasized the importance of considering all of these things “in totality.”

Griffin said an especially effective method for parents to deter their kids from getting involved with these forms of extremism is to get them involved in a real-world, offline activity. While sports may come to mind first, even walking, biking, or being outdoors with friends can help steer kids away from the type of online-only isolation experienced by many who are then targeted by NVE groups.

Griffin was joined by two of his colleagues, Tactical Specialists Keeley Cronin and Rachel Martin, who gave more detailed insights into popular online platforms these groups often use to recruit and exploit children and teens.

Each advised parents to be aware of and have conversations with their kids about what they’re doing online, including who they’re talking to and what they talk about. This includes checking their phones and social media pages for symbols and phrases often associated with these groups; if they’re unsure whether something is a “red flag,” Griffin said they should document it by screenshotting or writing the information down, then call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) to file a report which will be immediately looked into.

They also encouraged parents to research any and all available parental controls on social media platforms and games with chat features like Minecraft and Roblox. Parents are also advised to treat online forms of currency with caution, such as Minecraft’s “Minecoins” or Discord’s “Nitro,” as these can sometimes be used by NVE groups to extort children and teens for more virtual currency.

They emphasized that most of these games and platforms actively cooperate with law enforcement investigations to combat NVE activity. But some, like the messaging platform Telegram, are not based in the U.S. and do not share their data with the U.S. government; even if they did, some Telegram chats are locally hosted on individual devices and can be set to automatically erase within 24 hours.

The presentation concluded with several resources available to parents if they suspect their child might be involved in NVE activity, or if they simply want to find out more information. Those resources are listed below: