ISLAMABAD: An alert from a foreign investigative agency helped Pakistani authorities rescue a 14-year-old girl in Karachi from an international online network that blackmailed her into harming her pet and demanded self-injury, an official said.

The network, known as “764,” targets children through gaming and social media platforms, using threats to expose photographs and other material to coerce victims into increasingly harmful behavior. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned that such groups operate internationally, exploiting children through sexual abuse, animal cruelty and self-harm.

The Pakistani intervention comes amid international efforts to investigate the network. Earlier this month, a man identified by US prosecutors as a senior 764 leader pleaded guilty to conspiring to sexually exploit children. The US Justice Department said members coordinated the exploitation of minors across national borders.

“Our investigation is running on different IPs. We are working on the identification of other victims,” Tariq Nawaz, additional director of Pakistan’s National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), told Arab News on Wednesday.

Nawaz, who heads the agency’s Sindh region, said the foreign agency supplied an IP address that Pakistani investigators traced through a service provider to a household in Karachi.

Investigators contacted the household and seized devices used by the girl, he said. Nawaz declined to identify the foreign agency.

The girl had initially been approached through interactive games and social media platforms, including Instagram and Discord, according to Nawaz.

Those contacting her first instructed her to share photographs and subsequently demanded that she kill her pet cat, he said. After the animal was killed, they used the incident and threats to publish her photographs to pressure her into harming herself.

“She was being blackmailed like that,” Nawaz said, adding that she was now safe.

His account did not establish whether she had complied with the subsequent demands for self-injury. He said her contact with those involved had been online, with no in-person contact.

Investigators were examining material recovered from the devices to identify suspected perpetrators and other victims, Nawaz said. They were also seeking information from the platforms where the contact began and working with international counterparts to pursue digital leads.

He said the inquiry had identified victims linked to the network in Pakistan, the United States, Australia and Britain. In Pakistan, investigators had confirmed one victim’s identity and were trying to establish the identities of two others.

Nawaz did not announce any arrests in connection with the Karachi case.

The case follows another recent Pakistani investigation triggered by information from overseas authorities, although officials have not linked the two cases.

In September, an FBI alert led the NCCIA to a 17-year-old in Bahawalpur, in southern Punjab province, accused of using an artificial intelligence platform to research poisons and attempting to poison his father.

A criminal complaint registered on Sept. 23 and previously seen by Arab News said Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry had forwarded an FBI “Threat to Life” notification to investigators. The teenager denied the allegations, according to the complaint.

In that investigation, Pakistani officials confirmed the FBI’s involvement. Nawaz has not publicly identified the agency that alerted authorities to the girl in Karachi.