Alleged 'Terrorgram' leaders charged by DOJ for soliciting assassinations
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The U.S. Department of Justice building on Aug. 21 in Washington, DC. Photo: Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images
Federal prosecutors in California charged the alleged leaders of an online transnational white supremacist group with inciting members to carry out hate crimes and assassinations to start a race war, according to an indictment unsealed Monday.
The big picture: Dallas Humber of Elk Grove, California, and Matthew Allison of Boise, Idaho, allegedly provided a hit list of "high-value targets" for assassination to members of the Terrorgram Collective, per the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California.
- The list included U.S. federal, state and local officials, leaders of private companies, and non-governmental organizations.
- Many of them were targeted because of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Driving the news: Humber, 34, and Allison, 37, were charged with a 15-count indictment for soliciting hate crimes, soliciting the murder of federal officials, and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.
- They were both arrested Friday.
Zoom in: The group operates on Telegram, where it promotes "white supremacist accelerationism" and white supremacy, the indictment said.
- The group's ideology, the indictment said, is "centered on the belief that the white race is superior."
- According to the indictment, the group believes that violence and terrorism are the means needed to begin a race war to force the government's collapse and create a "white ethnostate."
- Humber and Allison allegedly operated channels and group chats that solicited users to commit attacks and provided instructions and guidance on how to carry them out.
Zoom out: There are at least three incidents in which Terrorgram users were allegedly inspired or guided by the group to plan or carry out such attacks.
- The include an individual who shot three people, two of them fatally, outside of an LGBTQI+ bar in Slovakia; another individual who planned an attack on energy facilities in New Jersey; and a person who stabbed five others near a mosque in Turkey, per the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The two men also created, edited and distributed a digital publication that provided instructions on how to run a terror cell, determine targets to attack and a guide for creating bombs and explosives, the indictment said.
- Humber narrated an audiobook version of the publication, as well as a 24-minute documentary produced with Allison that highlighted and celebrated 105 white supremacist attacks from 1968 to 2021, according to the indictment.
What they're saying: "Today's arrests are a warning that committing hate-fueled crimes in the darkest corners of the internet will not hide you, and soliciting terrorist attacks from behind a screen will not protect you," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
- "The United States Department of Justice will find you, and we will hold you accountable," he added.
