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cookiengineer | on: US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide
There's lots of people working for NATO and federal agencies in Europe that have been assassinated by the luckystrike branch of the FSB. The name comes from the Telegram account with underscores in between, and they're essentially recruiting kids or former inmates for GTA style missions.

Starts with simple stuff like package rerouting, then goes on to gathering intel about places, people, putting in USB flash drives to their laptops, theft, death threats, arsony, and actual murder. Each step of the way the kids get deeper into trouble because they have to prove that they have done it for the payout, making photos of themselves... which gives the other end increasingly more doxxing material on them.

It's a real problem, and they use the luckystrike branch also to go after witnesses in big lawsuit cases, which then fall off due to all witnesses accidentally dying under seemingly random causes.

impossiblefork | parent | next
I have heard of zero murders of NATO and EU agency people, and I think you're quite wrong.

There are of course people like this, recruited on the internet in the many criminal networks that exist, but I don't think they've had any notable successes.

| root | parent
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Loquebantur | parent | next
What gets overlooked here is the US IC itself being a probable cause: the habit of "housecleaning" by killing individuals suspected to be possible (even only prospective) leaks of information is very real.

The recent cluster of weird deaths and disappearances of scientists linked to secret military research has a similar pattern to it: a statistically highly unlikely density of "suicides, accidents & mishaps".

strictnein | root | parent | next
> "is very real"

Except it's not.

quickthrowman | root | parent | next
> The recent cluster of weird deaths and disappearances of scientists linked to secret military research has a similar pattern to it

The pattern being that the deaths and disappearances among people with top secret clearances is lower than the national average would suggest.

> According to science writer Mick West, more than 700,000 people work in top-secret-cleared positions in the U.S. aerospace and nuclear sectors. When viewed against existing mortality rates and causes, this would suggest around 250 persons in the industry would normally succumb to homicides and suicides over the time-period during which the 10 or 11 alleged "missing scientists" had died or disappeared, with thousands more dying of natural causes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists_conspiracy_...

neuroticnews25 | root | parent
Just think how many ordinary people they have to randomly kill to keep it that way.
polotics | root | parent | next
can you prove it? and if you can, you being still alive kinda contradicts...
SubiculumCode | root | parent | next
If so, then the family members of the president are in danger!
XorNot | root | parent | next
You have absolutely no information on whether this is probable or likely, and the recent news on scientists was a conspiracy theory powered as usual by a cherry picking facts and exaggerating biographies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists_conspiracy_...

wbl | root | parent
The US doesn't even kill foreign leaders. Our intelligence service doesn't have the skills or appetite, let alone citizens. The resulting scandal would make the Church commission look like nothing, not to mention the impact on recruitment.
a2800276 | root | parent | next
Yes, they only kill random fishermen in the Caribbean, foreign leaders get kidnapped and tried in kangaroo courts. Except Iranian leaders, those do get killed. But that's just the last 6 months.
wbl | root | parent
Those were military not CIA. The distinction really matters!
a2800276 | root | parent | next
Regardless that you said "the US doesn't...", there's no way the CIA was not central to kidnapping Maduro and as for Khamenei: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/us/politics/cia-israel-ay...

I'm not sure why the distinction matters, the Navy and Coast Guard also need to recruit. I could imagine at least an occasional sailor is troubled by shooting drowning seamen, even if they are suspected smugglers.

Perhaps even a few civilians are troubled by the lack of regard for human life of the psychos running the show, eliminating any moral standing the world pretended the US had.

krapp | root | parent | next
>The distinction really matters!

to whom?

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ddq | root | parent
>The US doesn't even kill foreign leaders.

Is the US military somehow not "the US"? Do you not have any shame just blatantly lying like this?

TheMayorOfDunce | root | parent
Surely you've reached the conclusion by now that "resulting scandal" no longer steers policy, or even any noteworthy degree of public outrage.
iso1631 | parent | next
> There's lots of people working for NATO and federal agencies in Europe that have been assassinated by the luckystrike branch of the FSB. The name comes from the Telegram account with underscores in between, and they're essentially recruiting kids or former inmates for GTA style missions.

Iran too

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyqggvyp1do

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/29/norwegian-te...

fryanyway_swe | root | parent
EU is already under attack by Iran and has been for a while yet the american zoomers on TikTok/Reddit/here state everything is fine and Iran/China/Russia just wants to be left alone uwu

>The Swedish Security Service has established that the Iranian regime uses criminal networks in Sweden to carry out violent acts against other states, groups, or individuals in Sweden that Iran regards as threats.

https://sakerhetspolisen.se/ovriga-sidor/other-languages/eng...

breppp | parent | next
Haven't found a lot about it online, other than https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7786/artykul/3438674,russian...

Do you have any references about it?

This is very reminiscent of Iranian intelligence modus operandi in Israel and world wide lately, currently with not a lot to show for

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/06/how-iran-sough...

cookiengineer | root | parent
> Do you have any references about it?

Before someone from the US claims some leftist bullshit about this (as this is what Russian bots typically do), here's a mix of newspapers including more right/conservative ones:

- https://www.blick.ch/schweiz/polizei-warnt-eltern-teenies-we...

- https://www.mdr.de/ratgeber/finanzen/telegram-gruppe-jobange...

- https://www.sicher-im-netz.de/europol-warnt-kriminelle-rekru...

- https://www.fr.ch/de/sjsd/pol/news/die-kantonspolizei-freibu...

- https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland-und-internationales/euro...

- https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/euro...

- https://www.dutchnews.nl/2026/04/teenagers-being-recruited-b...

- https://nltimes.nl/2026/04/29/europol-children-recruited-vio...

Also check netzpolitik and other CCC-related media outlets, there's been extensive research about this topic from us. (Didn't want to post articles where I've personally been involved, but you can find them easily with similar search keywords.)

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mannanj | parent
The open AI engineer who was ready to testify in a copyright case against them, also died in weird circumstances. His mom is out on an anti-Altman campaign.

Man this stuff sucks to be so out in the public and out of darkness. I mean we knew these things were happening but they’ve accelerated so much now and what are we going to do about it?