Bavarian probe widens into alleged online abuse network
Thursday 12th November 2026 on 12:30 in
Bavaria
Investigators in Bavaria believe more suspects and victims may be linked to an online network accused of coercing children into violent and degrading acts, BR reports. Two teenagers have been arrested, and some alleged perpetrators have not yet been identified.
A spokesperson for the Munich General Prosecutor’s Office told the German Press Agency that investigators were pursuing several additional suspects and believed there were further victims, but gave no figures.
Two suspects in pretrial detention
Two teenagers from Hesse are in pretrial detention on suspicion of belonging to the so-called COM network, according to the Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism, a unit of the Munich General Prosecutor’s Office, and Swabia police.
Investigators say the pair contacted a 13-year-old and two 14-year-olds in Bavaria online in the spring. They allegedly used manipulation and threats to make the girls perform sexual acts and injure themselves, and told them to film or photograph what they did. The suspects are alleged to have acted as members of a criminal group organised to commit particularly serious offences.
The central office and Augsburg criminal police are investigating the two on suspicion of forming a criminal organisation, aggravated sexual abuse without physical contact, possessing child and youth pornographic material, and coercion.
The COM network is described by authorities as an extremist, violence-glorifying scene operating worldwide. Groups and individuals allegedly use social media and online games to target children and teenagers and force them into self-harm, sexual and humiliating acts. Alexander Ecker, head of the central office, called them “criminal, inhuman groups.”
White Tiger case brought wider attention
The phenomenon gained wider public attention through the “White Tiger” case. A trial has been under way at Hamburg Regional Court since January against a German-Iranian man who allegedly used that name online and forced children aged 11 to 15 to harm themselves. He is also accused of driving a 13-year-old boy from the United States to suicide. Prosecutors in Hamburg have charged him with murder, among other offences.