Portuguese police flag 54 video game addresses potentially used to radicalise youth

What the police found

The Polícia Judiciária (PJ) said on Tuesday, 3 November, that it had identified 54 online addresses of video games with extremist content in Portugal in less than a month. The material could be used to radicalise children and teenagers. The work was carried out through the PJ's National Counter-Terrorism Unit as part of an action coordinated by Europol. The PJ framed the findings as a matter of child and teen safety.

Most of the Portuguese content was tied to the True Crime Community (TCC), a network of people fixated on real crimes. Inside game environments, that material simulated terrorist attacks on schools and a mosque, and glorified perpetrators of past attacks. The PJ also found downloadable maps for the Bonelab virtual reality game that let users recreate those scenarios.

The addresses found in Portugal also included militant Islamist-themed avatars on Roblox and a Discord invitation encouraging TikTok users to move to a dedicated community. The 54 addresses were uploaded to the PERCI platform and referred to online service providers.

The Europol operation

The action ran from 14 September to 9 October and involved partners from 16 countries. It flagged more than nine thousand links to violent extremist and terrorist content spread across more than ten online gaming platforms. That material was used to spread propaganda and recruit young people. Across Europe, the flagged content promoted violent extremism and terrorism inspired by jihadism, the far right, the far left and anarchism, and was distributed across 47 social media and gaming platforms.

Warning of recruitment

The PJ warned that these activities could develop into coordinated production and distribution of propaganda, along with recruitment of new members and sympathisers, including young people and minors. The communities recreate the structures, narratives and symbols of terrorist organisations and attacks, and their members may act out roles in those groups or reconstruct violent events. The police said that bringing terrorist ideologies into interactive game experiences can feed radicalisation processes.

The PJ put the risk in its own words:

“These activities can evolve into coordinated efforts to produce and disseminate propaganda and to recruit new members and sympathisers, including young people and minors.”

Prevention efforts

The PJ said that identifying and flagging this kind of content is essential to halt the spread of terrorist propaganda and stop it being used to recruit members or prepare violent acts. It recalled that in January 2026 it launched the communication campaign 'Hate online, Kills offline', which addresses the online radicalisation of children and young people.