Europol has launched a new international taskforce aimed at dismantling the growing number of organized criminal groups recruiting young people to carry out cyber and physical crimes under the model of so-called "violence-as-a-service."
Led by Sweden, the Operational Taskforce GRIMM (OTF GRIMM) brings together law enforcement agencies from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway. The initiative is a direct response to the rise in youth-led crime, driven by criminal syndicates leveraging social media and online platforms to attract and control minors.
These syndicates are described as criminal service providers, offering their “services” to clients who may request anything from drug trafficking and cyber-attacks to online fraud, violent extortion, and even murder. Europol warns that many of these young perpetrators are groomed and recruited through encrypted messaging apps and social media platforms using coded language, memes, and gamified tasks to appeal to teenagers' desire for community and identity.
“Recruitment is often highly strategic, exploiting vulnerabilities and glamorising a luxurious, violent lifestyle. Social media platforms and messaging apps are used to reach young people through coded language, memes and gamified tasks. In return for money, status or a sense of belonging, they are drawn into criminal schemes that are both violent and transnational,” Europol said.
The recruitment is not only digital in nature. Once engaged, these youths are provided with instructions and materials to carry out attacks in the real world. Europol notes that for the crime bosses, using underage individuals serves as a strategic buffer against law enforcement, pushing the most visible risk onto minors while shielding the leadership.
Europol attributes the surge to economic vulnerabilities, a lack of opportunity, and the false promise of a glamorous lifestyle offered by these criminal groups.
OTF GRIMM's core objectives include:
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Enhancing cross-border intelligence sharing and facilitating joint investigations.
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Mapping out how these violence-as-a-service networks operate, including their recruitment and monetization techniques.
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Actively working to identify, infiltrate, and dismantle criminal service providers.
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Collaborating with technology platforms to detect and disrupt recruitment efforts online.
In a 2022 report, the UK’s National Crime Agency revealed that children as young as nine have been involved in launching DDoS attacks, often without fully understanding the gravity of their actions.
