Authorities on Thursday arrested two men described as leaders of a sadistic neo-Nazi child exploitation cult that victimized children around the world, including two in Southern California.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, a grand jury indicted 23-year-old Collin John Thomas Walker of Bridgeton, New Jersey, and 41-year-old Clint Jordan Lopaka Nahooikaika Borge of Pahoa, Hawaii for their alleged role in a child exploitation cult that groomed children online and coerced at least 16 young victims to create child sexual abuse material and images of self-harm.
The charges are linked to two earlier indictments unsealed Thursday involving 28-year-old Rohan Sandeep Rane of Antibes, France, and 24-year-old Kaleb Christopher Merritt of Spring, Texas. All four men are in custody.
“The defendants here are alleged to have committed horrific acts against children,” said Acting United States Attorney Joseph T. McNally.
“Sextortion and other forms of online child sexual abuse have tragically altered the trajectory of too many young lives and this group preyed upon the vulnerable to fulfill their sick and twisted desires,” said Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Los Angeles Special Agent in Charge Eddy Wang. “HSI and our partners will work tirelessly to protect children from victimization in communities across the United States and around the globe.”
According to the indictment, the men are members of CVLT — pronounced cult — which is an online group centered on neo-Nazism, pedophilia and nihilism. CVLT members participated in their online child exploitation activities because they wanted to create an army of sadist followers, according to the justice department.
They targeted vulnerable children and exposed them to extreme videos of rape and the torture of animals to desensitize the children to sadistic violence, federal prosecutors said.
According to the indictment, the men then used threats and coercion to get children to create videos of extreme self-debasement, such as hurting themselves and eating their own hair and using razor blades to carve CVLT members’ names into their skin. They escalated the scope of what they asked of the youth, “…encouraging children to harm themselves and others, in order to desensitize them to extreme and violent acts, such as punching themselves, hanging themselves with belts, engaging in sexual or violent acts with their pets, and – eventually – escalating to killing themselves on livestream.”
The group then blackmailed the children with those images to produce child sexual abuse videos involving themselves, other children and animals, according to the indictment.
“When victims hesitated, resisted or threatened to tell parents or authorities, CVLT members would threaten to distribute already-obtained compromising photos and videos of the victims to their family and friends,” the U.S. Justice Department announced in a written statement. “For victims who stopped participating in the CSAM, CVLT would sometimes carry through on their threats.”
From at least 2019 to 2022, Rane, Walker, Merritt and Borge were members of CVLT, and Rane, Walker, and Merritt acted as leaders and administrators in the CVLT enterprise, hosting and running CVLT online servers and controlling membership for the group, the indictment alleges. They went by online handles such as “evil,” “sociopatch,” and “tradlordd,” according to the indictment.
According to prosecutors, there may be other unnamed suspects involved with the CVLT enterprise. Authorities identified victims around the world including in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.
If convicted, the men would face a 20-years to life in prison.
