Two people are under arrest for hatching a terror plot to use the social media messaging app Telegram to solicit people to carry out attacks furthering their white supremacy aims, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday.
Authorities arrested Dallas Erin Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, Calif., and Matthew Robert Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho on Friday, charging them with 15 counts that included conspiracy, soliciting hate crimes, soliciting the murder of federal officials, doxing federal officials, sending threatening communications, distributing bombmaking instructions, and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, the Justice Department said.
The two lead the so-called Terrorgram Collective, an international terrorist group that promotes inciting a race war with acts of violence and terrorism to “accelerate the collapse of the government and the rise of a white ethnostate,” the Justice Department said in unsealing the indictment Monday. Their targets would have been minorities, government officials and critical U.S. infrastructure, the department said.
They were accused of distributing bombmaking instructions and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, the government said. They also had a list of high-profile political targets for assassinations, and urged people to commit hate crimes — all based on race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation and gender identity, the justice department alleged.
In addition, the pair made posts and documentaries celebrating acts of violence, officials alleged. One was a fake newspaper front page titled “Daily News,” complete with the motto, “Terrorgram’s Hometown Newspaper,” mimicking the New York Daily News, according to an image provided in the indictment.
Humber entered a not-guilty plea Monday in Sacramento. Allison is expected to appear in court on Tuesday, according to CBS News.
“The risk and danger they present is extremely serious,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department’s top national security official, said at a press conference. “Their reach is as far as the internet because of the platform they’ve created.”
“Today’s indictment charges the defendants with leading a transnational terrorist group dedicated to attacking America’s critical infrastructure, targeting a hit list of our country’s public officials, and carrying out deadly hate crimes — all in the name of violent white supremacist ideology,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “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. The United States Department of Justice will find you, and we will hold you accountable.”
With News Wire Services