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The FBI has accused a Texas man, James Wesley Burger, of planning an Islamic State-style terrorist attack on a Christian music festival and talking about it on Roblox. The feds caught Burger after another Roblox user overheard his conversations about martyrdom and murder and tipped them off. The feds said that when they searched Burger’s phone they found a list of searches that included “ginger isis member” and “are suicide attacks haram in islam.”

According to charging documents, a Roblox player contacted federal authorities after seeing another player called “Crazz3pain” talking about killing people. Screenshots from the server and included in the charging documents show Roblox avatars with beards dressed in Keffiyehs talking about dealing a “greivoius [sic] wound upon followers of the cross.”

“The witness observed the user of Crazz3pain state they were willing, as reported by the Witness, to ‘kill Shia Musilms at their mosque,” court records said. “Crazz3pain and another Roblox user[…]continued to make violent statements so the witness left the game.”

The witness stayed off of Roblox for two days and when they returned they saw Crazz3pain say something else that worried them, according to the court filing. “The Witness observed Crazz3pain tell Roblox User 1 to check their message on Discord,” the charging document said. “Roblox User 1 replied on Roblox to Crazz3pain, they should delete the photograph of firearms within the unknown Discord chat, ‘in case it was flagged as suspicious…the firearms should be kept hidden.”

According to the witness, Crazz3pain kept talking about their desire to commit “martyrdom” at a Christian event and that he wanted to “bring humiliation to worshippers of the cross.” The Witness allegedly asked Crazz3pain if the attack would happen at a church service and Crazz3pain told them it would happen at a concert.

Someone asked Crazz3pain when it would happen. “‘It will be months…Shawwal…April,’” Crazz3pain said. Shawwal is the month after Ramadan in the Islamic calendar. The conversations the witness shared with the FBI happened on January 21 and 23, 2025.

Roblox gave authorities Crazz3pain’s email address, name, physical address, and IP address and it all pointed back to James Wesley Burger. The FBI searched Burger’s home on February 28 and discovered that someone in his family had put on a keylogger on the laptop he used to play Roblox and that they’d captured a lot of what he’d been typing while playing the game. They turned over the records to the feds.

“The safety of our community is among our highest priorities. In this case, we moved swiftly to assist law enforcement’s investigation before any real-world harm could occur and investigated and took action in accordance with our policies. We have a robust set of proactive and preventative safety measures designed to help swiftly detect and remove content that violates our policies," a spokesperson for Roblox told 404 Media. "Our Community Standards explicitly prohibit any content or behavior that depicts, supports, glorifies, or promotes terrorist or extremist organizations in any way. We have dedicated teams focused on proactively identifying and swiftly removing such content, as well as supporting requests from and providing assistance to law enforcement. We also work closely with other platforms and in close collaboration with safety organizations to keep content that violates our policies off our platform, and will continue to diligently enforce our policies.”

Burger’s plan to kill Christians was allegedly captured by the keylogger. “I’ve come to conclude it will befall the 12 of Shawwal aa/And it will be a music festival /Attracting bounties of Christians s/In’shaa’allah we will attain martyrdom /And deal a grevious [sic] wound upon the followers of the Cross /Pray for me and enjoin yourself to martyrdom,” he allegedly typed in Roblox, according to court records.

The FBI then interviewed Burger in his living room and he admitted he used the Crazz3pain account to play Roblox. The feds asked him about his alleged plan to kill Christians at a concert. Burger said it was, at the time, “mostly a heightened emotional response,” according to the court records.

Burger also said that the details “became exaggerated” but that the goal “hasn’t shifted a bit,” according to the court records. He said he wanted to “[G]et the hell out of the U.S.” And if he can’t, “then, martyrdom or bust.”

He said that his intention with the attack “is something that is meant to or will cause terror,” according to the charging document. When the FBI agent asked if he was a terrorist, Burger said, “I mean, yeah, yeah. By, by the sense and … by my very own definition, yes, I guess, you know, I would be a terrorist.”

When authorities searched his iPhone, they discovered two notes on the phone that described how to avoid leaving behind DNA and fingerprints at a crime scene. A third note appeared to be a note explaining the attack, meant to be read after it occured.

The list of previous searches on his iPhone included “Which month is april in islam,” “Festivals happening near me,” “are suicide attacks haram in islam,” “ginger isis member,” “lone wolf terrorists isis,” and “can tou kill a woman who foesnt[sic] wear hijab.”

Burger has been charged with making violent threats online and may spend time in a federal prison if convicted. This is not the first time something like this has happened on Roblox. The popular children’s game has been a popular spot for extremist behavior, including Nazis and religious terrorists, for years now. Last year, the DOJ accused a Syrian man living in Albanian of using Roblox to coordinate a group of American teenagers to disrupt public city council Zoom meetings.

  • Saleh@feddit.org
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    2 hours ago

    Attacking Civilians and killing yourself are haram.

    Also note how they guy initially planned to target Shia muslims.

    “The witness observed the user of Crazz3pain state they were willing, as reported by the Witness, to ‘kill Shia Musilms at their mosque,”

    Fuck Wahhabis, Salafis and their toxic influence on Islam while being in bed with the US and other imperialists.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
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    3 hours ago

    Since secret services were fast enough for once, now you will just lock him up, so he can connect with like-minded, instead of giving him counseling, where he went wrong. Right?

  • LWD@lemm.ee
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    8 hours ago

    Feds: “We need a backdoor to encrypted messaging to prevent terrorist attacks!”

    Terrorist: unencrypted plans on fucking roblox

  • rem26_art@fedia.io
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    12 hours ago

    The FBI searched Burger’s home on February 28 and discovered that someone in his family had put on a keylogger on the laptop he used to play Roblox and that they’d captured a lot of what he’d been typing while playing the game. They turned over the records to the feds.

    This whole story is pretty wild, but this bit stands out to me. Was his family member concerned about his ideas enough to put a keylogger on his laptop before the authorities ever got involved? Was it a shared laptop? Or was it for some other reason??

    • Ecco the dolphin@lemmy.ml
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      2 hours ago

      I think it’s notable what they didn’t find. No guns, weapons. No plane tickets. No bombs or bomb making equipment. No actual real plans, just aimless searches. This guy is young. You can find a picture of this guy online (I’m not going to link it. I think these sorts of sites should be illegal tbh).

      My guess:

      • Mentally ill, possibly mentally disabled
      • Lives with mom/dad etc, probably unemployed or unable to find a “good” job (Not a moral failing. American society is not giving many options for young adults to live “complete” lives).
      • Mom/dad/whoever notices how angry he is and installs a keylogger, because they don’t want him to become a mass shooter, and he’s a grown man still on Roblox.
      • Immediately confesses everything to FBI

      This guy needs a mental health intervention, not jail time. I have a hard time believing he is much of a public threat since they listed all the cool stuff they found in his house in the FBI charging documents but no guns/etc. This guy didn’t have a plan.

      Highly recommend this podcast episode from Reveal: Lessons From a Mass Shooter’s Mother

    • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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      5 hours ago
      • Be Burger
      • Live in Texas
      • Got health issues
      • Need to get out of US or bust
      • Self-incriminate on roblox and doing banally stupid searches
      • Also install keylogger for added “evidence”
      • Admit to everything when caught, like a comic-villain

      How to get federal health care 101

    • Hegar@fedia.io
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      11 hours ago

      Yeah it really stands out.

      Either it’s a lie and feds installed a keylogger remotely after the tip off from the Roblox user mentioned, Or the “matyr” had behavior problematic enough that even their family were concerned.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        Eh. Maybe his wife thought he was cheating on her. I remember back in 2006 I did that with a woman I lived with. I don’t even feel sorry that I invaded her privacy. Something felt off for over a year. I put the keylogger on, and caught her within a week.

        I was going to marry her!

    • SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net
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      12 hours ago

      Honestly that caught me too.

      I’d have to guess his family suspected/knew he was a piece of shit and wanted proof. Maybe he was also abusive? I don’t imagine someone like that would be like… super kind otherwise, you know?

  • Hubi@feddit.org
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    11 hours ago

    I’m sorry but that screenshot absolutely sent me. Beyond hilarious

    • fullsquare@awful.systems
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      9 hours ago

      bro tried to recruit jihadists in roblox (failed) and now screenshots from this all are a matter of public record 💀

    • protist@mander.xyz
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      11 hours ago

      I…I thought that was satire created for this article. That’s from actual court documents

  • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
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    12 hours ago

    It must’ve been really annoying to have to censor all that for ROBLOX. Like, c’mon? Why not Discord? Anyways, fucked up. Wonder how he was radicalized in this way. Well, Texas is pretty bad. But still, I’m sure there’s at least a few good Christians in Texas. Hopefully. Terrible planning skills, basically announcing it all in public with plenty of time for cops to get evidence.

    • IndescribablySad@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      Funny story, I pretended to get groomed by this dude on Roblox for like 2 weeks because my nephew really wanted their pets in some ninja clicker game. This was the course of action that I chose because I thought it would be funni.

      This was entirely out in the open, no dms, global chat. The only thing that prevented them from getting really weird was the filter, and my belligerent cursing after a long message wouldn’t go through because I wrote “butter” or something equally innocuous. Neither the game admins nor the Roblox admins cared about my report of a child predator, but hopefully the fbi kept something vile from happening.

      Anyway, my nephew quit Roblox like 3 days after I gave them those pet things because they couldn’t figure out how to jump over some obstacle. My brother didn’t seem to care about my anecdote or warning. All of that to say, that filter was really frustrating when I tried to erp with a child molester. I can’t imagine how much this dude suffered.

      • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
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        10 hours ago

        There’s an obscene amount of pedophiles on Roblox. Seems like a lot of Sonic fan game devs are. Absolutely no one caring checks out, it’s pretty fucked. Your brother should’ve REALLY cared though. The filter was a pain in the ass even when I was a little kid playing Roblox while believing that swearing is evil. It censored numbers. All numbers. Because they thought we were giving up our phone or social security numbers or some shit. Roblox is horribly managed. I’d probably prefer my kids to get a more benign (relatively) trauma in COD chat.

        • IndescribablySad@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
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          10 hours ago

          Yeah, no, it did not take me long at all to find someone creepy. I fully believe they’re a common sight in Roblox, though I have only a small sample size. It shouldn’t take such a short time to find pedophiles, much less overt and verbose pedos, anywhere.

          My nephew moved on to a league clone, and I occasionally wonder whether they would have been better off getting molested over the internet.

          • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
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            10 hours ago

            Fucking insane last sentence, god damn, you didn’t have to burn him alive. I don’t know if anyone ever tried to groom me. Can’t remember anything about it. Probably because I played shitty games, y’know the ones that were too boring for basement dwellers.

            • IndescribablySad@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
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              10 hours ago

              Dude, he’s just so angry all the time. It’s awful. But he’s not racist because there’s no chat, just emotes, so there’s that, at least.

              I’m glad you came out of it unscathed. My quick peek into roblox felt terrifyingly enlightening, personally. Sometimes unusual tastes are a boon, it seems.

              • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
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                9 hours ago

                Man, I wasted a ton of time on there. But I guess if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be who I am. Youtube had a way bigger influence though. Youtube during 2020 was a life changing experience. Arguably for the worse, but, ehh, whatever. People that get angry because of online games probably shouldn’t be around them too much. Single player games are much safer for kids. None of the lego game npcs tried to see my child ass. Even more mature stuff like Elder Scrolls or Arkham couldn’t ruin a kid as much (well, probably not at all. Maybe some weird ideas about violence?) as a lot of those super toxic live fps games.

    • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.ml
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      9 hours ago

      I spent most my life in Texas. Most of the people I met were Christian. I have met one person I can say actually followed the most basic tenants of christianity. For everyone else it was just an aesthetic.