Australian girls are being hunted by online crime networks and coerced into acts of violence - against themselves, their siblings or pets - in a "twisted type of gamification", police have warned.
A new taskforce has been set up to help global authorities tackle this "new and disturbing front in traditional gender-based violence", Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett will say in a speech on Wednesday.
Three people have already been arrested in Australia, and another nine people around the world.
It is unclear what the acts being committed by targets are, but Ms Barrett says the alleged perpetrators hold violent extremist views and want to hurt people "for fun".
Aged in their late teens or early 20s and largely from Western backgrounds, they recruit pre-teen or teenage girls through gaming platforms such as Roblox or messaging apps such as Discord and Telegram.
