But the app has also become a hotbed of disinformation, extremism, and incitement to violence, and crimes linked to the platform include bomb plots, stabbings, and shootings. Earlier this year, one particular story stood out as a prime example of how young people are being radicalized by the information they’re consuming on Telegram.

In June, a 12-year-old boy was charged with three felony counts of arson and five counts of criminal damage to property after being accused of setting three cars on fire over the course of six days in Wisconsin. A close look at Telegram revealed that a child appearing to be responsible was influenced by extremist groups associated with “764,” specifically a group that call themselves “SuicideHill.”

764, which was founded in 2020 by a U.S. teenager called Bradley Cadenhead, is a right-wing Satanist network that has spread across the world via the internet, largely through encrypted messaging platforms like Telegram and Discord. Groups affiliated with it use a combination of violent imagery, Nazi symbolism, and psychological manipulation to exploit vulnerable youth; coercing and blackmailing them into self-harm, violence against others, sexually explicit acts, and crimes that can then be weaponized for propaganda and recruitment.

A child operating on Telegram using the handle “GhostyK” posted video footage of the arson attacks in an extremist group chat. One video shows him carving and spray-painting “SuicideHill” onto vehicles before igniting them. Via his personal Telegram account, he also posted images of himself holding the same blowtorch used in the attacks, with additional videos clearly showing him committing the crimes while marking vehicles with the group’s name. After posting the footage on the SuicideHill Telegram channel, he commented: “Btw I stayed there for a good solid 20 minutes Cause I was surrounded and someone pulled up not even a block down. I made it out though and I’m back home ”

These messages and videos appeared in a Telegram chat known for promoting violent acts and posting antisemitic and racist content, as well as disturbing imagery involving minors. In this environment, the boy engaged in multiple troubling conversations. In one exchange, he encouraged a suicidal user to follow through with the act on camera.

Not long after the boy’s arson attacks, a post on the SuicideHill channel included footage of his crimes as part of a compilation video designed to glorify violence and recruit new members. This edited version included images of firearms, bullets arranged to spell “SH,” and graphic self-harm footage showing young people who’d written “SuicideHill” in blood. Under the video, the message read: “SH will reak [sic] terror on all, dm for the requirements now. join in the terror.” Another post declared: “The terror is back and final. SH has reset the full roster. We are back. More terror will come, more killing will come, more pain will ensue on this world.”

Stories like this are not rare. Earlier this year, a British teenager affiliated with 764 pleaded guilty to encouraging suicide, possessing a terrorism manual, and indecent images of a child. And in March this year, an American teenager and member of 764 was sentenced to serve 84 months in federal prison for possessing child sexual abuse material. In fact, the FBI alone has more than 250 investigations underway with regards to the 764 network.

As for the arson attack in Wisconsin, the footage will most likely be repurposed indefinitely to glorify the acts, recruit additional members, and coax even more minors into aggressive extortion, continuing a cycle of exploitation that has made 764 one of the most alarming threats to child safety in the digital age.

Read more about 764: The Vile Sextortion and Torture Ring Where Kids Target Kids

The post A 12-Year-Old Boy’s Arson Arrest May Be Linked to a Global Terror Network appeared first on VICE.

The Fowlerville Community Theatre was hosting the play at American Legion Devereaux Post 141 when they became aware of “the presence of self-identified Nazi protesters,” according to a press release.

Bobby Brite, past commander of the legion, recorded a video of the protestors and shared it to Facebook. He told The Detroit News that the group of 10 masked men chanted things including “Anne Frank was a whore” during their anti-semitic showing. Frank was 15 when she died at a concentration camp in 1945.

“They are some of the most cowardly people I’ve ever met,” Brite told the outlet of the “absolutely disgusting” protest.

“There was a group of people at the four-way intersection in downtown that had swastika flags and American flags,” Alex Sutfill, a witness, told the local CBS station. “They were sticking their arms up and yelling ‘Hail Hitler‘ and ‘Hail Trump’ and everything like that.”

How the Protest Was Handled

The theater group alerted the American Legion staff on duty of the situation and was assured they were already aware of and monitoring the men, who moved out of the legion’s parking lot when asked.

Afterwards, the demonstrators went “across the street and waved flags adorned with Nazi insignia,” the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office told The Detroit News. “A subject then approached them, and an argument ensued.”

Peter Damerow told the local CBS station that he was the one who confronted the group. In response, he claimed, “They looked at me and one of them said, ‘No this is Pureville now, and we’re here to make sure it stays pure.'”

“Nothing physical transpired and ultimately the parties involved separated,” the sheriff’s office said.

Still, “out of an abundance of caution,” the group alerted the audience members to the situation at intermission.

“For this production, our cast was also on stage in character during intermission, which was when they found out as well,” the press release read. “Although some were understandably shaken, they pulled together and finished the performance with strength and professionalism.”

How the Situation Mirrors History

Chuck Firman, president of the Fowlerville Community Theatre, added in a statement to the The Detroit News, “It was a scary moment. But really, the show must go on.”

The theater’s press release further noted how the ordeal, which ended when the protestors left before the end of the show, “gave us a small glimpse of the fear and uncertainty felt by those in hiding.”

Indeed, Brite told the local ABC station, “We had 75 people downstairs that watched that play and out of that 75, there were 50 or 60 of them that were afraid to leave this building. We had to escort them to their cars. No one in America should feel like that.”

“As a theatre, we want to make people feel and think,” the press release read. “We hope that by presenting Anne’s story, we can help prevent the atrocities of the past from happening again.”

The Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan outpost said In a statement, “disgusted by the far-right extremists who praised Hitler and waved Nazi flags” at the event.

In October, the organization found that, following Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel, there were 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. That’s a 200 percent increase from the previous year.

The post Masked Men Wave Nazi Flags, Use Slurs Outside Performance of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ appeared first on VICE.

In video obtained by CBC News, four people are seen entering the Nova Scotia party wearing white robes and pointed hoods. One person in the racist outfit was carrying a makeshift cross.

In a statement to Global News, Fire Chief Lloyd MacIntosh said the people in Ku Klux Klan costumes were admitted by volunteers working the door.

“A mistake was made,” he admitted. “They were allowed in, they shouldn’t have been.”

Volunteers asked the people to remove their hoods, but some refused, MacIntosh said. He added that a volunteer took away the cross one person was carrying.

Firefighters Speak Out About the Racist Costume

In a statement posted to Facebook, the club admitted that it “made a mistake!”

“We apologize to any and all of our community who were offended or hurt by our lack of actions,” the post read. “These four individuals are in no way, shape or form associated with our organization. We promise to be better in the future.”

Wade Gouthro, the Deputy Fire Chief, also spoke out about the controversy in a Facebook post.

“I can honestly tell you that the situation at the North Sydney Firefighters club is not who we are or what we stand for,” Gouthro wrote, before admitting that he’d been “very reluctant” to address the situation due to fear of adding “fuel to the fire.”

“I can tell you this, the members of North Sydney and myself are very sorry from the bottom of our hearts and we ask for your forgiveness,” he continued. “We would certainly never intentionally hurt or insult anyone regardless of race, color, orientation or religion. We spend all of our time trying to do right by the community and are here to do all we can for anyone.”

Gouthro added that being “referred to as racists hurts bad.”

Why KKK-Dressed Attendees Were Admitted to the Party

While Gouthro was not working the party in question, he noted that he’s worked the annual event many times in the past.

“When we have Halloween dances you never know what you are going to see come through the door,” he wrote. “Most times we think, ‘Ah it is a costume’ without really thinking of the big picture or the past it represents.”

“So when you folks comment that they shouldn’t have gotten in and that we need to do better, you are right, and we will,” Gouthro continued. “… I will assure you that we are all hurting in our hearts today that we have disappointed a community that we work so hard to make better and protect.”

He concluded his post by “once again apologizing on behalf of myself and our membership and also a sincere promise to do better in the future.”

The post Canadian Firefighters’ Halloween Party Admits Group Dressed as KKK Members appeared first on VICE.

We called him up to get a read on Follow The Leader, set to air from September 17th in the UK. 

VICE: Hey Jamali. Obviously this beat is a familiar one for you. But how have extreme ways of thinking, cults, etc. all developed and changed in recent years?
Jamali Maddix: I think the internet changed everything when it comes to those communities. If there was a small group in a small town in America, it stayed within that small town in America. But things spread more now, so you’ve got movements or ideas that can spread easily. And the cost of making content has dropped dramatically. So you’ve got men and women making their content, of whatever their ideas are, at a high quality—and they can push it out on the biggest channel in the world, which is the internet, you know? So I think these ideas are more easily accessible than ever.

Yeah, it’s also interesting how everyone’s nan now seems to have quite a fringe view of the world.
When it comes to certain views—maybe political or low-end conspiratorial views—it’s also because there’s so much information. I think it’s difficult for certain generations to decipher what is and isn’t real, because there’s a generation of people who grew up when newspapers were just… I mean, obviously, there’s always been lies in newspapers, but journalists investigated a story and then they presented the story, maybe with a twinge of political bias, but they presented pretty much the story—and now it’s just, “I can make a website and say whatever I want,” and it’s considered fact. So I don’t think everyone’s got a ‘fringe’ view. It’s just some people can’t decipher between what is the real and the fake thing on the internet. 

AI images are going to change things a lot as well, because they will actually trick people’s eyes into thinking real images—things that have never happened—actually happened. It’s gonna be a weird future.

What role has COVID played in all this?
I think people during COVID had a lot of time to think. It’s not my line, but a comedian once said to me: “Some people have too much time to think, and they have arguments with themselves that they always win.” I think people had so much time on their hands, and they reflected on their life and made more brash decisions. 

In terms of the new series, Rod of Iron [a militant pro-gun offshoot of the Moonies religious movement, led by brothers Yung Jin Moon and Kook-jin Moon] used a lot of people’s apprehension [of the vaccine] to draw more people towards their ideas.

So what’s some of the exciting new stuff that you unearthed while shooting this series?
I enjoyed doing the predator hunter one; I enjoyed doing the passport bro one. I don’t know what mad things I uncovered. I don’t think there was like a mad…

Predator hunter as in like…?
It’s people who they’ve alleged to have spoken to underaged children, and then they go and confront them.

I think there’s something a bit off about that.
Yeah. In the film, it’s that complication. That’s what the film’s about, is the complicated nature of it, because we all agree that’s a bad crime, but it’s like, should they be… you know what I mean? All those questions get thrown up, and there isn’t really a definitive answer to it. That’s how I wanted to make it. I wanted it to be as if the audience member decides for themselves, where their morality lies within it, you know?

Has anything in your films made you feel like “we’re fucked”?
I felt that going in. 

Yeah.
I think that’s just apparent with the state of the world. I don’t think my docs are going to be the change of that; I’m not the canary in the coal mine. Human beings, we just adjust. If you would have said pre-COVID, there’ll be a time when you can’t go out for two years. You would have gone, “Nah, fucking I’ll go mad.” But you did it. You know what I mean? If you went to prison in fucking, the world’s worst prison, the first few days [would be tough], but after a couple months, you’d adjust. That’s just how human beings are. We just adjust, or we don’t and we don’t survive. And I think human beings just survive. So I think wherever the world goes, whether it’s the internet or whether it’s this, we just adjust, or we don’t. That’s the two options we have. The films are just exploring what’s going on and the people behind it.

Jamali Maddix: Follow The Leader airs on U&Dave at 10PM each Tuesday from 17^th September, with the box-set available to stream free on U from Tuesday 17^th September. 

Follow Nick Thompson on X at @niche_t_

The post “It’s Gonna Be a Weird Future”: Jamali Maddix Has a New Series About Extremists appeared first on VICE.

The Nazi Eagle symbol was developed by Hitler’s party in the 1920s, and is also known as the Imperial Eagle or Parteiadler. As well as the tablets bearing its image, cops seized half a kilo of weed and 100 grams of coke. The arrest was only reported by an Irish tabloid newspaper, the Sunday World, but the Dutch police confirmed its accuracy to VICE.

The irony is inescapable: to see an ecstasy pill (a drug synonymous with feelings of love, euphoria, and empathy) juxtaposed with Nazi insignia (synonymous with hate, brutal intolerance, and genocide, if you hadn’t been paying attention) is jarring in the extreme.

Yet this isn’t an isolated incident. “Yesterday, a member of the French Psychedelic Society, who works in a harm reduction association in western France, sent us this,” Dr Zoë Dubus, a post-doctoral researcher specialising in psychotropic drugs, wrote on X this week. Attached to the post was a photo of two grey pills, also stamped with the Nazi Eagle.

According to Dr Dubus, the pills are “starting to circulate in France” and have “been spotted since early 2024 in Switzerland, Iceland, and Holland.” Testing in Zurich revealed this design has also been used to make 2C-B (in 2023) and MDMA (this year).

The trend exists in an interesting context. Far-right political parties have made massive gains in Brussels of late, a situation lubricated by a grim uptick in youth support. In Germany, 16 percent of under-25s voted for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the EU elections earlier this month, triple the number for the same election in 2019. The National Rally (RN) in France was the most popular party for people aged below 34, increasing ten points to 32 percent of the vote for that demographic. Meanwhile, Poland’s far-right Confederation party saw an 18.5 percent increase in support from voters under 30. Similar shit has gone down in Portugal, Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands.

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Is it possible that we’re seeing Europe’s far-right surge play out through the medium of party drug designs? The first sample spotted with a Nazi symbol was in Switzerland in 2019, followed a few years later by a swastika LSD tablet. But until now, Dr Dubus explains, it’s been a “limited phenomenon.” That’s changed this year, however.

“In early 2024, several tablets with the Nazi eagle and swastika were analysed, indicating an increase in production,” she recalls. “What’s more, the pills are all different in quality and composition: 2C-B, MDMA, and a strange mixture which seems to indicate that one of the batches was made by a very amateur chemist.” The chemical diversity with the same pill design, she argues, demonstrates that they come from several different manufacturers. She does not know which groups are making them at the moment, but notes that European MDMA production continues to be mainly focused around the Netherlands.

The far-rightification of Europe’s illicit drug supply isn’t exclusive to ecstasy and 2C-B; it appears to have extended to the coke supply, too. Last year, narcs at a port in northern Peru busted 58 kilos of coke destined for Belgium. Each individual kilo block that made up the haul was wrapped in Nazi regalia and—just in case you missed that glaring swastika-shaped clue—the bricks of gear themselves were stamped with the telltale word ‘HITLER’.

Police Colonel Luis Bolanos told reporters the Nazi coke was worth $3 million and would’ve been “distributed across Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Spain.” Again, it’s hard to know if the special design had been ordered by neo-Nazi drugs gangs, or drugs gangs looking to sell to neo-Nazis, but if there’s one thing worse than being trapped with a neo-Nazi, it’s probably being trapped with a neo-Nazi who’s high on cocaine.

There’s an increasing stockpile of anecdotal evidence of Europe’s Nazi drug surge. Four months ago, a Redditor who self-describes as “a casual stoner” was baffled when presented with drugs branded with Nazi iconography. “A friend of mine showed me a bag of MDMA pills shaped like Nazi Eagles,” he wrote. “He found them funny as hell in an ironic way.” He added: “I kinda forgot about it, but now I’m seeing more and more people posting and having ecstasy shaped as swastikas, SS logos or Nazi Eagles, none of them are white supremacists … seeing how prevalent this has become lately, I’m kinda confused, is there any reason for it?”

I reached out to the Redditor and the subreddit requesting more information. The original poster has yet to reply, but in typical nihilistic fashion, those who did don’t link the design to genuine far-right groups. One said “people just press ‘em into whatever they want for the fun of it,” some said it was done for “marketing” purposes, and a couple believed it was a reference to the fact the original Nazis were themselves tweakers, often meth-ed up to the eyeballs for days on end while conducting their barbaric rampage across Europe.

But others were less optimistic. “I think the use of SS insignia and the Parteiadler as a pressed pill design speaks for itself,” Dr Brian Pace, an Affiliate Scholar at the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education, told VICE. “Attempts to dismiss or excuse it as some kind of troll is to concede that one can troll in this way without some level of adherence to far-right ideologies. The only people who would find that funny are fascists, period.”

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I asked Dr Dubus if she thinks that the people pressing the pills are trolls or actual far-right groups. “Some could be trolls. But some could really be linked to Nazi groups that very openly discuss their use of psychedelics on forums.

“Ecstasy pills have always been used to spread ideas,” she added. “Counterexamples are the Me Too or Antifa pills. But the increase in the presence of this symbol at several French parties [raves] in recent days, just after the elections giving 30 percent to the worst far-right party in history, is particularly worrying.”

Follow Simon on Twitter @oldspeak1

The post Nazi Drugs Are Sweeping Across Europe appeared first on VICE.

The baptism, which was streamed on Facebook, was led by Pastor Hansel Orzame, a 44-year-old southern Californian and a self-identified Christian Nationalist who leads “Ekklesia; The Unwoke Church.” 

The service was held in the 800-square foot “Wonderwall Space,” which, with its exposed brick and Christmas lights, advertises itself as ideal for baby showers and engagement photo shoots. But twice a month, Orzame’s flock—who he calls “Praying Patriots”—assembles there to pray. 

The Praying Patriot who was baptized on this recent Sunday in February was named Andrew. Sitting in the bathtub in his clothes, he spoke into a microphone that Orzame held for him, his voice cracking with emotion. Andrew, who has Proud Boy insignia in his personal Telegram profile, explained that he’d recently found God and learned that “true masculinity is in Christ.” 

“Christ had the biggest cojones,” said Andrew. “Being men of Christ is being real men. So let’s be real men.” 

Another man being baptized that day was introduced by Orzame as “a warrior.” “As you know, political rallies can get a little physical, a little spicy,” Orzame said. “I’ve seen this guy do amazing things out there.” 

“Christ had the biggest cojones. Being men of Christ is being real men. So let’s be real men.” 

Orzame’s church has harnessed a rising tide of Christian nationalism, which claims that America is a fundamentally Christian nation, and that “patriots” are in a “spiritual war” against nefarious, even Satanic, forces who want to subvert the country’s cultural and political institutions. 

“Christian nationalists just want to go back to the way it was, Christian values and Christian ethics,” he told his followers in response to a newly-released trailer for the documentary “God and Country,” about the disturbing rise of Christian nationalism.

“We don’t want to jail Muslims, we don’t want to jail Atheists. But we want the Christian standard back. Secular government introduces paganism. It’s just a stopgap for paganism.” 

In the last four years, churches that fuse rabid nationalism with Christianity have sprung up nationwide, thumbing their noses at the tax breaks offered by 501c3 status, which has historically incentivized pastors to at least maintain the illusion of keeping politics out of the pulpit. There’s even a website, “MyChurchFinder” that ascribes a letter rating to churches based on their pastor’s level of Christian nationalist views. Orzame’s church received an A: “Biblically sound, Culturally Aware & Legislatively Active.” 

“We cannot beat these globalists, this globohomo machine alone,” Orzame appealed to God in a recent prayer broadcast on the streaming platform Rumble. “We need Your strength. We need Your guidance. We need strategies from heaven and God.” 

Orzame’s rising profile in southern California’s far-right scene, and his extensive links to the Proud Boys, is the latest indication that the gang and their allies are increasingly seeking religious justifications for their continued culture war activities, even as their uniformed public appearances have waned. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which tracks extremism and unrest worldwide, found that since the Jan. 6. Capitol riot, Proud Boys have been more likely to appear in public alongside Christian nationalist and conservative groups compared to years prior to 2021, when they often aligned themselves with militias. 

A 40-person private Telegram channel, leaked to VICE News by local researchers, offers some insight into Orzame’s core Praying Patriots congregation. Among them is at least one known Proud Boy, Louie Flores, as well as far-right activist Bryce Henson, an active-duty Navy Seal who was recently investigated and exonerated for his ties to extremist groups. (He is, however, set to be disciplined for making threats towards local independent journalists and activists, according to KPBS). Some members of the channel have explicit neo-Nazi or white supremacist imagery in their profiles. 

Orzame uses the Telegram channel to broadcast his upcoming appearances; recently, he said he’d be at a school board meeting to protest LGBTQ-inclusive policies, an effort that has preoccupied southern California’s far-right for the last two years. These appearances often devolve into violent brawls. “THIS IS GROOMING BEHAVIOR,” Orzame wrote before a visit to Don Lugo High School in Chino, where school board members were set to approve a policy that requires administrators to notify a student’s family if the student identifies as transgender. “Please pray for me and the men that are to be my security.” 

He also posts links to his sermons on Rumble and DLive; the latter platform allows him to collect donations in the form of tokens purchased, or bitcoin. Ahead of one sermon in December, he advised the other members of the chat to avoid using Proud Boy slogans such as “POYB” (Proud of Your Boy”) and “Uhuru” (a Swahili word meaning “Freedom” that Proud Boys have co-opted as their rallying cry). “We will fly under the radar,” wrote Orzame. 

Do you have information to share about Hansel Orzame’s church or about far-right organizing in California? Email tess.owen@vice.com to share tips.

A sermon in September featured John Kinsman, a Proud Boy who just completed a four-year prison sentence for his involvement in a violent street brawl with antifascists in Manhattan in 2018. Kinsman told Orzame that he, too, had recently found God. He described a dream he had in prison, in which he was sitting on the toilet smoking a cigarette and visited by a Christ-like figure who told him God had “big plans” for him. 

Last May, Orzame’s guest was Tony Moon, who goes by “Rooftop Korean” and has been a mainstay of violent far-right demonstrations around Los Angeles in the last few years. Moon was filmed at a 2021 protest swinging a titanium water bottle at a journalist’s head. He has also appeared for in-person services at the Ekklesia Church. 

Orzame was born in Manila and moved with his parents to southern California when he was a child. His father, who he describes as “based,” works as a dentist, and owns a $1.4 million home in Covina; Orzame has held baptisms in his dad’s swimming pool. 

Orzame has claimed he previously worked as a producer in the adult film industry, and even appeared briefly as a talking head in a documentary about the dangers of porn that was bankrolled by a fundamentalist Christian organization. VICE was unable to independently verify his stint in the adult film industry. 

As Orzame tells it, his first stint as a religious leader was as a youth pastor at Gospel Life Community in Walnut, in Los Angeles County, just 8 miles from Pomona. He got his formal training at the Potter’s House of Ministry, an international pentecostal religious organization that’s faced multiple accusations of being a cult.

Orzame did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment, but claims on the Ekklesia website that while serving as pastor for a Christian club at a grad school, he encountered “satanic imagery” scrawled on whiteboards and was ultimately “kicked off of campus for proselytizing.” 

His ties to the far right date back to at least 2017; that year he was present when far-right groups including Patriot Prayer—a Christian nationalist group known for allying with Proud Boys—assembled for “Free Speech Week” at UC Berkeley and ended up scrapping with leftist protesters.

In February 2018, Orzame traveled to San Diego for a so-called “Patriot Picnic,” part of a series of protests against murals in a local park celebrating Mexican-American and Aztec culture. Orzame was photographed wearing a tactical vest with the word “pastor” emblazoned on his chest and was later arrested for urinating on a mural. Local antifascists obtained leaked planning chats that showed protesters discussing the guns they were bringing to the protest, with Orzame responding approvingly. In 2019, along with his wife, he founded Ekklesia.

Though he denies being a Proud Boy himself, Orzame makes no secret of his fondness for the gang. He routinely promotes Proud Boy content on his social media pages, including videos by Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes and fundraisers to help Proud Boys facing charges related to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. 

Orzame’s insistence that he’s not actually a Proud Boy, as well as the fact that he generally keeps his hands clean by not getting directly involved in violent melees at protests, means he doesn’t have the same baggage as some of his friends in his group chat. As a result, he’s been able to build inroads into more “mainstream”—relatively speaking—political circles in southern California. 

For example, he describes Siaka Massaquoi, an actor and the vice chair of the Los Angeles County GOP committee, “a close friend.” Massaquoi, who was arrested at Hollywood’s Burbank airport in December on charges linked to the Jan. 6 riot, has appeared on Orzame’s broadcast twice in the last six months. 

In that livestream, Massaquoi and Orzame reflected on a rally hosted by “Leave Our Kids Alone,” a coalition of far-right activists, which resulted in brawls with pro-LGBTQ counter-protesters outside Los Angeles Unified School District’s headquarters. 

Massaquoi suggested that it might be poor optics for the anti-grooming contingent to keep getting into scrapes with counter-protesters at these sorts of events. “We have to be strategic,” he said. 

“I think we should treat this as a military operation,” Orzame said. “I’m not calling for violence, okay? I’m just saying this is spiritual warfare.” 

“It’s a battle for everything,” said Massaquoi.  “Some people are going to be involved in physical altercations, and there’s some people who are going to die.” 

“I think we should treat this as a military operation. I’m not calling for violence, okay? I’m just saying this is spiritual warfare.” 

Orzame is also the “chaplain” for a new organization called G3 (God, Guns, and Government). G3 is run by Netty Chow, who became a local celebrity in Orange County in 2020 when she coordinated “prayer walks” in defiance of COVID-19 lockdowns. Also leading G3 is Jon Matthews, a long-time conservative activist with deep ties to the Eagle Forum, which was formed in 1972 as a retrogressive counterweight to the women’s liberation movement. 

Last July, G3 hosted an “Election Reform Summit” that drew an array of right-wing influencers, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, the man who ran the effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Toni Shuppe, a QAnon adjacent election denier and key ally of Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who ran an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2022. 

The following month G3 paid for Ormaze to travel to Missouri for a conference on election fraud hosted by Lindell. There, Orzame said he met with Gen. Mike Flynn, who allegedly told him he was a “big fan” of the Ekklesia Unwoke Church. “He says ‘good job guys hang in there,’” Orzame wrote in the Telegram channel. 

And most recently, Orzame attended an in-person conference in Orange County hosted by the California chapter of the Election Integrity Project, a group dedicated to sniffing out voter fraud claims that is now holding meetings across the state to recruit “citizen observers” who can “observe and document” the upcoming primary election. 

Orzame might have built a local reputation on providing spiritual meaning to the lives of southern California’s bruisers—to local left-wing activists, he’s known as “The Proud Boys Pastor.” But if his recent activities are anything to go by, he’s now looking to capitalize off some of his new relationships from the culture war scene and expand his reach, beyond the fringes, and into MAGA-world. 

Disclosure: Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, was a co-founder of VICE in 1994. He left the company in 2008 and has had no involvement since then.

The post Inside the Christian Nationalist Church Where Proud Boys Go to be Baptized appeared first on VICE.

After allegedly killing his father, Justin Mohn, 32, filmed a 14-minute video in which he displayed the head in a bag and called for people to kill federal employees. He posted the video to YouTube under the name “Mohn’s Militia—Call to Arms for American Patriots.”

“This is the head of Mike Mohn,” he says as he holds up the head, “a federal employee of over 20 years, and my father.”

Police believe Mohn shot his father to death before beheading the corpse. The DA’s office says records show he purchased the gun he used on the day before the murder. He was arrested 100 miles away from his home, in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, where he was apprehended after jumping the fence surrounding a National Guard Training Facility. He was arrested with a loaded Sig Sauer 9mm pistol. 

The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office has now filed terrorism charges against Mohn. In a press release, the DA office said when they arrested Mohn they found him with a USB drive on which police found a folder titled “fucked up shit.”

“Inside of that folder, [police] observed another folder titled ‘us army improvised munitions handbook,’” reads the criminal complaint against Mohn. “That folder included several pictures of Federal Buildings along with instructions appearing to show the steps needed to make an explosive device.”

When police searched Mohn’s home they found his father’s head in a cooking pot and a blood-stained computer Mohn used to upload the video to multiple platforms. The video was removed within less than a day but has nonetheless spread extensively across the internet, particularly on the website X, where keyword restrictions were necessary to halt its spread.

In the video, Mohn gives a speech that isn’t dissimilar to what you’d hear from many on the far right. In it he rails against President Joe Biden, a “communist takeover of America,” and “far-left woke mobs.” He bemoans that the “federal government has declared war on America’s citizens” and that “America is rotting from the inside, as far-left woke mobs ravage our once prosperous country.” He also claims that the government is working alongside undocumented immigrants, the LGBTQ community, Black Lives Matter, and Antifa to destroy the United States. 

He then calls for “patriots” to fight back. If convicted, Mohn could face life in prison. (Pennsylvania law does carry the death sentence for first degree murder, but no one has been executed for it since 1999 and politicians just started the process to abolish it.)  

“All federal employees are to be killed on site,” he said. “All FBI, IRS, and other federal law enforcement offices, as well as federal courthouses, are to be sieged around the country… Earn your place in heaven by sending a traitor to hell early.”

Mohn had an extensive online footprint which included having several albums up on Spotify and a collection of self-published books. His latest publication was an essay called “America’s Coming Bloody Revolution.” Mohn was seemingly involved in several lawsuits against the government that focused on affirmative action; he argued the government harmed him by allowing him to take out student loans and affirmative action prevented him from finding work. In the video where he displays his father’s head, Mohn mentions the judge who dismissed his lawsuit by name, gives out his address, and calls for a $100,000 bounty on the “heads of all federal judges.” 

Mohn is facing charges for “first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, possession of an instrument of crime, three counts of terrorism, two additional counts of possession of an instrument of crime, and one count each of robbery, firearms not to be carried without a license, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, criminal use of a communication facility, terroristic threats, and defiant trespassing.”

He is being held without bail. 

The post Man Who Showed Father’s Decapitated Head in a YouTube Video Charged With Terrorism appeared first on VICE.

The French concert, Call of Terror, is scheduled to be held in an unannounced location in the southeastern Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region on February the 24th, while an Italian gig called Hot Shower will be held somewhere in northern Italy three weeks later. The events mark the return of the concerts, billed by their organisers as festivals and both established fixtures on Europe’s underground extreme-right music scene, for the first time since they were interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

READ: Coronavirus shut down Europe’s neo-Nazi music festival scene

The gigs will feature some of the biggest names in the explicitly neo-Nazi musical genre known as “National-Socialist black metal,” or NSBM. The genre’s racist ideology is made clear on a poster for Hot Shower circulated on social media, which features a cartoon rat – Splinter from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – wearing a Jewish Star of David, along with a hooded Klansman.

“Please stop comparing [Jews] to vermin – it’s insulting to the vermin,” read one comment beneath the poster on the gig’s Facebook page.

Thorsten Hindrichs, a musicologist at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz who specialises in far-right music subcultures, told VICE News that the concerts are two of the major events in Europe’s neo-Nazi musical underground. 

“Both festivals are of enormous importance for the international NSBM-scene, because they have already established a certain tradition, and because the line-ups usually feature ‘high-calibre’ Nazi bands,” he said. 

Headlining Call of Terror, which is being held for the fifth time, is veteran Polish band Graveland, described by Hindrichs as “one of the stars of the international NSBM-scene.” 

Formed in Wrocław in 1991, the group has had albums banned in Germany, and appears on an Anti-Defamation League list of “hate music” bands. The group’s founder, who uses the stage name “Rob Darken,” told an interviewer in 2006 that most people would describe his politics as “extreme right-wing National Socialist convictions.”

Other acts on the Call of Terror lineup include Italian band SPQR – a phrase referring to the Roman Republic – which has been promoting its appearance at the festival with its latest music video, which features footage of Ukrainian soldiers in combat and is dedicated to far-right Ukrainian fighting units including Azov Brigade, Right Sector and the Russian Volunteer Corps. Also on the bill was Polish NSBM band Kataxu, which, like SPQR, was “very well-known within the scene,” Hindrichs said. 

France was known for having one of the strongest and best-networked NSBM scenes in Europe, alongside strongholds further east like Poland, Ukraine and Russia, he added. 

READ: Black metal festival in Ukraine is the neo-Nazi networking event of the year

The Hot Shower event in northern Italy, being held for the ninth time since the inaugural concert in 2012, will be headlined by Vothana, a US-Vietnamese NSBM-band that Hindrichs said rarely performed live. The lineup also includes Brazilian band Walsung, whose catalogue includes the Nazi-glorifying track “When Totenkopf Rises (Der Stürmer)”, and the French NSBM band Seigneur Voland, which has a song titled “Quand les Svastikas étoilaient le Ciel” (“When Swastikas Light Up the Sky”).

Alexander Ritzmann, senior adviser at the Counter Extremism Project, said that events like the concerts acted as “central networking hubs” for transnational extreme right-wing movements. 

“They have a social function – [to] ‘make fascism fun’ – and they are used to make money for the movement through ticket sales, merchandise and catering,” he told VICE News. 

Key figures in the right-wing extremist underground would typically meet up around the event and discuss areas of collaboration, including potentially violent actions. Ritzmann said there was no “clear distinction between the extreme right-wing music scene, and violent right-wing extremism.”

“They all meet at those events, where spreading hate propaganda against minorities is at the centre of the action,” he said.

These music events serve as a key revenue stream for the traditional neo-Nazi underground scene, with much of the money raised put back into far-right activity. These activities include financing the publication of political material, organising events, covering legal fees for extremists who fall foul of the law.

“A lot of cash is changing hands at these events,” said Ritzmann.

READ: Neo-Nazi music festivals are funding violent extremism in Europe

Hindrichs said that he believed the previous editions of the concerts had drawn a few hundred attendees each, all of whom would have been hardcore adherents of the extremist NSBM scene. “You don’t end up at a festival like this by accident,” he said. “Anyone who goes there … is already ‘on board’.”

Organisers for Hot Shower responded to a VICE News request for comment in an apparently facetious manner, seemingly using a common white supremacist code referencing Adolf Hitler’s initials (“A” being the first letter of the alphabet, “H” being the eighth) in response to a question about the expected attendance at the event. “For the last edition we just sold 188 tickets, it will be a good thing to have the same number again,” read the response. A poster for the festival says the capacity is limited to 300 people.

The organisers also brushed aside a question about the hateful ideology behind the event, responding that they were “really surprised that VICE is so happy to write about a few people in a little gig.”

Organisers for Call of Terror did not respond to a VICE News request for comment. 

The post Neo-Nazi Music Shows Return To Europe appeared first on VICE.

Paul Faye, of Montgomery County, Tennessee, was arrested late last week on gun charges, as first reported by Seamus Hughes, a senior researcher at the University of Nebraska Omaha’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center, via his site Courtwatch. 

Faye allegedly plotted his attack at the border for at least a year, and sought to recruit others. 

In December, Faye unwittingly told undercover FBI employees that he was hoping to coordinate with militias from Kentucky, Georgia, and Tennessee, and had been in touch with a member of the North Carolina Patriot Party, which court documents describe as a militia, about traveling to the border around Jan. 20. 

“The patriots are going to rise up because we are being invaded. We are being invaded,” Faye told the undercover agent last year. He claimed that the government was “training to take on its citizens,” according to court documents, and that the Biden Administration was intentionally allowing illegal immigration into the U.S. as part of a nefarious plot. 

The grievances and conspiracy theories that drove Faye to hatch his violent plot are the exact same ones that brought the “God’s Amy” protest convoy to the southern border last weekend.

Faye’s allusion to an “invasion” at the southern border is the exact same language that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his political allies have used to justify their ongoing defiance of the federal government over border enforcement. Donald Trump, on the campaign trail, has also frequently characterized undocumented immigrants coming over the border as “an invasion.” 

Faye’s arrest shows how violent extremists and would-be “lone wolves” are closely unified with the broader GOP when it comes to rhetoric about the border, and demonstrates the dangers of normalizing that kind of incendiary language in mainstream environments.

Faye said that he hoped an attack at the border would “stir up the hornet’s nest,” and inspire others to join him. “What’s going to happen. What I hope happens. Is called a domino effect,” he said, according to court documents. 

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The FBI say it became aware of Faye following the March 2023 indictment of Brian Perry, a militia member from Tennessee who, with another militia member, conspired to “go to war with border patrol” and murder migrants at the border. Investigators found that Perry had had “extensive” contact with Faye in the lead-up to his arrest. 

An undercover FBI employee contacted Faye via TikTok, and once Faye felt confident his new confidant was not a fed, he began talking about his weapons training and weaponry. 

The FBI says Faye wanted to train in person with the undercover FBI employee, who he thought was joining in with his plan. He made a few remarks about needing to acquire certain tactical equipment, and implied, according to the FBI, that they’d be able to get those items from “deceased Border Patrol agents.” 

Last summer, Faye told the undercover employee that it was “time to step things up” and said he was gathering things that go “boom boom boom when you want them to” and “a few things that go bang and go fast if you know what I mean.” 

Faye said one of his roles with the group that was planning to travel to the border last month was to be a sniper. He told the undercover employee that his talent was “sending down range,” which they interpreted to mean shooting at people while on the border. “I’ll be the first one on the scene, and the last one to leave,” Faye said. “The reason why I say that is, if something, just say that we were going down like that, before you even put yourself in danger, I would be on top [of ] that roof right there, zeroing out, taking out anybody.”

He showed undercover employees his “war room,” which included a large amount of ammo, a bulletproof vest, and numerous firearms including multiple AR-15s and a Creedmoor rifle, which is popular among snipers. He’d said he was in possession of tannerite, which he said could be “easily converted into claymore mines” according to court documents, and said he knew someone in Tennessee who could make IEDs. He also said he’d planted butane tanks around his property, which he could blow up if law enforcement ever arrived. 

Faye has been charged with possession of an unregistered silencer, which was affixed to the 6.5 Creedmoor rifle. The government is seeking Faye’s detention pending the outcome of the trial. 

The post Tennessee Man Plotted to Bring Guns and Explosives to the Border, FBI Says appeared first on VICE.

Except, that is, for the militias and extremists who are joining up with the convoy—and the organizers who have extensive ties to militias and the patriot movement.

On Wednesday, someone identifying themselves as a member of the Nebraska Constitutional Militia announced on the convoy’s channel on Zello, a walkie-talkie app, that they’ll be at the border this weekend. “We’re there to support you guys. Any help you guys need, let us know,” they said, adding that they intend to stay peaceful. John Walz, a candidate for the Nebraska House, announced on his social media that he’s joining up with the Nebraska Constitutional Militia, and will convene with convoys for rallies on the weekend.

Another person on Zello indicated that a militia from California was planning to join the convoy. The militia in question did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment. Someone else on the channel identified themselves as a member of a 3% militia group, and asked if it was still OK for him to join up.

Although organizers previously described themselves “not militia friendly,” they’ve changed their tune a bit. One of the admins for the Zello channel said that it was fine for the militias to come, but only if they remained peaceful. They added that “side arms” were welcome, but said militia members should plan to leave their guns in their vehicles during Saturday’s rally. Organizers have also asked people to leave their long guns at home.

Militia and extremist involvement is just the latest development in the potential slow-rolling PR nightmare convoy organizers have been scrambling to prevent this week. Six patriot-world influencers organized the convoy over a month ago—weeks before simmering tensions between Texas and the Biden Administration erupted into a standoff and drove intense interest in the convoy.

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Those organizers seem to be doing what they can to distance themselves from any possible messiness, such as violence or bad optics, that could unfold at the border in the days or even weeks ahead.

They’ve been trying to temper expectations, repeatedly stating, for example, that the convoy is not going to the border: Instead, they say it will rally at the Cornerstone Children’s Ranch, a 10-acre private property in Quemado, 20 miles from Eagle Pass, which is the epicenter of the standoff. Organizers plan to hold a “spiritual revival” on Saturday. Some convoy participants have expressed confusion and disappointment over the location and planned activities. “I would love to see a million Americans show up at the border and link arms, but that’s just me,” streamer Oreo Express said on their livestream on Thursday.

“Nobody associated with this convoy is going to Eagle Pass, period,” said Kim Yeater, one of the organizers, on Zello on Wednesday. “There is no desire to conflict with the National Guard, or interrupt their operations or anything.”

“I would rather see the convoy stay away from the border, but just bring attention to it,” Yeater said. It’s worth noting that although the Cornerstone Children’s Ranch is 20  minutes from Eagle Pass, it’s about 500 feet from the border with Mexico.

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Additional rallies will take place simultaneously at private properties in Yuma, Arizona, and San Ysidro, California. On Thursday, a group split off from the main convoy, which is currently in Dripping Springs, Texas, around 23 miles east of Austin, and headed to Yuma. A pep rally is planned at a brewery in Dripping Springs on Thursday night.

Organizers have suggested that there may be separate groups of protesters or convoys who will rally in Eagle Pass, but it’s not clear who those groups are. Last week, Joshua Feuerstein, a radical far-right preacher and GOP candidate for the Texas House, announced on social media that he was ready and willing to lead “an armed civilian militia to the border” though it’s unclear where those plans currently stand. Meanwhile, a self-described “progressive evangelical group” is also heading to Eagle Pass, with the goal of countering the Christian nationalist rhetoric of the “God’s Army” convoy.

For all their attempts to pre-emptively whitewash the event and separate themselves from any extremist elements, some organizers have indicated previously that they had no qualms about buddying up with militias.

Devin Burghart, Executive Director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, has been cataloging evidence of one of the organizers’ extensive ties to the militia movement. Burghart surfaced a December conversation between organizer Johnathon Alexander and Take Our Border Back Steering Committee member Mark Anthony, in which they discussed the need for Trump to “call up the militias” and deploy them to the border.

Alexander has also been photographed over the years wearing various militia uniforms, sharing videos from militia training events, and posing for photos with known militia members and anti-government extremists, including Ammon Bundy.

Extremist leader Mike Forzano, who goes by “Mike America” on social media, has also taken on a leadership role for the convoy and rally, though he doesn’t appear to be an official organizer. He heads a southern California group called “Exiled Patriots,” and has brawled with leftist protesters, shown up to rallies armed with knives, and spearheaded violent anti-LGBTQ rallies that brought together Proud Boys and white supremacists.

Forzano released a video Wednesday laying out rules for this weekend’s rally, and says that for the last few days he’s been staying at the ranch where the convoy will take place.

And, one of the admins for the Zello channel is AJ Andrews, who identifies himself as the founder of the National Patriots Coalition, a 3% group. Andrews ran communications for a massive pro-gun rally in Richmond, Virginia, in January 2020, according to a report by On The Media’s Micah Loewinger.

Read Next

Protest Convoy Headed to Southern Border Is Calling Itself an ‘Army of God’

Militias have long maintained a presence at the U.S.-Mexico border, and regularly engage in vigilante activity like patrols and intercepting migrants. But one of the most visible border militias, Patriots for America, will be keeping their distance from events around Eagle Pass and similar rallies this weekend.

“[Patriots for America] will not be anywhere near that event,” the group’s leader Samuel Hall told VICE News. “We do not operate or ‘join up’ with anyone on our Southern border that have not been put through our organization’s strict vetting process. We just hope that everyone that attends stays safe and the people there exercise wisdom and discernment.”

Overall, it’s still not entirely clear what this weekend will look like. The convoy got off to a sad start, with just a couple dozen vehicles departing Virginia Beach on Monday—a far cry from the 700,000 truck figure that was forecast on Fox Businesss. Many would-be participants have expressed concern that the convoy is a trap, or, in their words, a government psy-op. But despite the dampening effect of those conspiracy theories, the convoy has grown as it’s made its way through the south to at least 100 vehicles, with more saying they plan to join.

How long people plan to stick around the border after the rallies is another question. Earlier this week, someone on Zello asked if the convoy was “permanent until the border is secured.” “There’s no telling how long this convoy will last,” responded A.J. Andrew, one of the admins.

But Kim Yeater, one of the original organizers, made it very clear that the convoy—and the organizers’ responsibility to anyone involved—“ends this weekend.”

The post The ‘God’s Army’ Convoy Says Militias Can Join But No Big Guns, Please appeared first on VICE.