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Prasan Nepal, 21, pleaded guilty on October 8, 2026, in federal court in Washington, D.C., to conspiracy to commit sexual exploitation of a child. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia says the charge carries a mandatory minimum of 15 years and a maximum of 30 years in federal prison. No sentence has been imposed yet. The judge has scheduled sentencing for March 5, 2027.
The plea is the most recent step in a federal case that prosecutors tie to 764, an online network the Justice Department describes as a global violent extremist network. The account below relies on the Justice Department’s October 8 announcement and the court documents it cites. Those descriptions are the government’s account, not findings a court has yet made.
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What Nepal pleaded guilty to
Nepal entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to commit sexual exploitation of a child. A conspiracy charge means the government’s theory rests on an agreement among several people to carry out the crime, not only on conduct by one person. The Justice Department says Nepal and others used encrypted platforms to coordinate that conduct, which it describes as spanning roughly 2021 through 2025.
The release does not describe the plea as the end of the case against him. It frames the plea as a resolution of the charge he has accepted, with sentencing still ahead.
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The sentencing range and what it does not tell you
Two numbers appear in nearly every report on this case, and they mean different things:
- Mandatory minimum, 15 years. This is the least time a judge may impose for this offense under the statute, as the government describes it. A judge cannot go below it on this charge.
- Maximum, 30 years. This is the ceiling. The headline phrase “faces up to 30 years” refers to this figure.
Neither number is a prediction of the actual term. Within the 15-to-30-year band, the judge will weigh the facts found at sentencing and the arguments of both sides. Until the judge imposes a sentence on March 5, 2027, the real term is unknown.
How the government describes Nepal’s role
The Justice Department calls Nepal a senior leader of 764. The release uses the online moniker “Trippy” for him. According to the government, court documents and the statement of offense place him, along with co-defendant Leonidas Varagiannis, who uses the name “War,” among the core leaders of 764 and of an inner subgroup called 764 Inferno.
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The timeline in the government’s account
The release sets out a timeline drawn from court documents and the statement of offense:
- Early 2021: Nepal joins 764.
- August 2021: An earlier individual is arrested, and Nepal emerges as a leader.
- Through April 2025: Nepal remains in a leadership role.
- Late 2020 to early 2025: The release says the broader network’s activity spans this period, and that investigators identified more than a dozen active co-conspirators associated with Nepal and Varagiannis.
The release describes recruitment of vulnerable minors, coercion and threats, and the circulation of exploitative material. It does not reproduce those descriptions in detail here, and this article does not either. The release also reports, through the government’s account, that the conduct involved at least eight minor victims, with some content traced to children as young as 13. These are case-specific figures reported by the government from court records. They are not general data about how often this happens.
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Who investigated the case
The Justice Department identifies the FBI Washington Field Office as the lead investigating office. It credits significant assistance from FBI offices in New York and Charlotte, from international partners, and from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of North Carolina. The case was brought under Project Safe Childhood, a Justice Department initiative launched in May 2006 to combat the sexual exploitation of children online.
The co-defendant and the separate Greek proceedings
Varagiannis is Nepal’s co-defendant in the government’s framing of the leadership structure. According to the October 8 release, he is being held at Grevena Prison in northern Greece and is expected to face trial there within six months on separate charges. That is a different proceeding in a different country. Nepal’s plea does not resolve it, and nothing in the release says the Greek case will change Nepal’s sentencing range.
The Greek custody and trial timing come from a single release and could have changed since it was issued. Readers should treat them as a snapshot as of October 8, 2026.
What the Justice Department says about the plea
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro is quoted in the release: “Today’s plea represents one of the most significant developments yet in dismantling 764’s leadership structure.” That is the prosecutor’s assessment of the plea’s significance. It is not an independent evaluation of the network’s reach.
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What happens next
- Sentencing, March 5, 2027: The judge will impose a sentence within the statutory range, which the government describes as 15 years minimum and 30 years maximum.
- Greek proceedings: Varagiannis’s trial in Greece is expected within six months of the October 8 release, according to the government.
- Co-conspirators: The government says more than a dozen active co-conspirators were identified. The release does not say which, if any, have been charged.
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