A landmark cybercrime trial commenced in Hamburg this week against a 21-year-old dual German-Iranian national, identified only as Shahriar J. due to privacy laws. The defendant stands accused of operating under the pseudonym ‘White Tiger’ as a key member of the international criminal network ‘764,’ which authorities have characterized as a nihilistic violent extremist group dedicated to child exploitation.
Prosecutors have brought 204 distinct charges against Shahriar J., alleging he systematically targeted and groomed more than 30 vulnerable children and teenagers, primarily between ages 11 and 15, from Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The crimes are said to have occurred between 2021 and 2023, entirely through online channels.
The prosecution’s case details a horrific pattern of manipulation. Shahriar J. is suspected of using social media to establish intense emotional dependency with his victims before exploiting that bond to coerce them into producing violent and sexual content. This allegedly included live-streamed acts of self-harm and sexual acts. In what German media reports describe as the most extreme cases, he is charged with one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder ‘as an indirect perpetrator’ for allegedly persuading victims to take their own lives, including a 13-year-old American boy who died by suicide during an online session.
A central element of the charges involves the accusation that Shahriar J. recorded these acts to blackmail the children, threatening to publish the material unless they performed increasingly severe self-harm on camera.
Given that some alleged offenses occurred while the defendant was a minor, the court proceedings are being held in private. Before the trial, his defense lawyer, Christiane Yüksel, vehemently denied all accusations, labeling them ‘baseless and fabricated.’ She specifically challenged the legal theory of ‘indirect perpetration’ in the murder charge as an unproven ‘experimental construct.’
The case has drawn significant international attention, with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) having previously made arrests linked to the ‘764’ network, which it classified as a major international child exploitation enterprise.