Greggy’s Cult engaged in depraved conduct such as repeatedly encouraging victims to kill themselves or encouraging them to insert household objects into their genitals or anus. The group also engaged in coordinated extortion of victims, both adults and minors, through various means including by attempting to frame adult victims as pedophiles or by sending malware to minor victims’ computers. The group then used this leverage to get the victims to engage in degrading acts on camera. Bermudez resided in the Eastern District of New York during the charged offenses.

As alleged in the indictment, between January 2020 and January 2021, the defendants participated in the production and distribution of child sex abuse material and also engaged in other forms of exploitation and harassment of both minor and adult victims. The defendants and other members of the Greggy’s Cult convened on the Discord servers and directed minor victims, who had joined a video call on either Discord or another video conferencing platform, to engage in sexually explicit or other degrading conduct. The defendants and other members of Greggy’s Cult captured images (i.e. “screenshots” or “screen recordings”) of the sexually explicit conduct and shared it to other Discord servers and amongst themselves.