The National University of La Plata woke up in an atmosphere of panic after an anonymous email announced an impending massacre within its colleges. The letter, addressed to various units of the UNLP, included pictures of guns, knives and an explosive tone of hate. The attacker promised to enter armed and “kill everyone,” indicating his intention to broadcast the attack live. Given the clear nature of the threats, the university decided to suspend its activities, activate its internal protocols, and immediately intervene with security forces.
background
The peculiarity of the email was the signature: the sender identified himself under a pseudonym associated with the so-called Network 764It is a group that has emerged in the past two months linked to similar warnings sent to other educational institutions in Argentina, such as the National University of Tres de Febrero and the Argentine Catholic University. The reference to a previous “failed killing operation” in the same letter reinforced the connection to those events and raised all alarms.
According to various police reports and cybersecurity analyses, Red 764 operates primarily in digital environments and not as a traditional organization with an established physical structure. Its roots go back to the American forums that emerged in 2020, where neo-Nazi expressions, satanic aesthetics, violent rhetoric, and strong underage recruitment activity coexisted. Platforms like Discord, Telegram, Roblox, and closed forums serve as areas for recruitment, manipulation, and blackmail. Suicide rituals and challenges, sermons glorifying school shootings and coercive mechanisms against vulnerable youth who seek to emotionally or psychologically subjugate them are widespread.
Abroad, there have already been arrests linked to people who claimed to be part of 764: young people in the UK accused of inciting others to harm themselves; Recruits in Spain accused of promoting attacks; And members in the United States were investigated for producing child pornography. In all cases, rather than being a hierarchical organization, the network functioned as a decentralized digital community where different individuals acted under the same radical character or aesthetic.
This characteristic is the key to understanding the Argentine case. There is still no evidence of the existence of an official cell operating in the country. Preliminary research confirms that threats can come from users truly connected to the network and from imitators or isolated sympathizers seeking to cause influence, chaos or recognition under an intimidating headline. The signature “764” in many cases acts as an identity shield used by people who do not necessarily have an organic connection to those who started the movement. However, this does not reduce the danger: experts warn that these phenomena spread through infection, and that a single person with access to weapons and motives could turn a digital threat into a real-life event.
Email, Threat at UNLP
The email sent to UNLP reproduces patterns already observed: the story of the insults he suffered, fantasies of revenge, the dehumanization of potential victims, and a detailed enumeration of the weapons the attacker was supposed to use. The author not only describes his plan, but seeks to justify it in a personal narrative of dissatisfaction, which is common in shared discourses within digital extremist communities. It also indicates that it may attack several colleges, forcing the authorities to deploy operations that include more than one specific building.
For the university, the impact is immediate and profound. Suspension of activities in the middle of the academic calendar impacts finals, courses, assessments, and daily dynamics for thousands of students and staff. For security authorities, the challenge is even greater: tracking the source of the email without clear signals, in an environment of anonymity, and determining whether it represents a real threat, an intimidation maneuver or an Argentine echo of a global network that combines intolerance, manipulation and symbolic violence.
The question that remains open is how close the country is to moving from threats to action. The proliferation of virtual extremist communities, combined with the ease with which violent rhetoric can be replicated, forces organizations to prepare for the worst-case scenario, even when many of these warnings do not come true. In the case of UNLP, the fear lies not just in how real the email is, but in the uncertainty it creates: the idea that anyone could use a mysterious name, send a terrifying message and change the life of an entire university.