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FBI Director Kash Patel and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on Tuesday a sweeping indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), accusing the far-left nonprofit of fraudulently paying members of extremist groups.
A grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment charging the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to Blanche.
The SPLC is a nonprofit that claims to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups, and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling the groups.
Blanche said the SPLC was paying roughly $270,000 to a member of the leadership group that planned the Unite the Right protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, that resulted in the death of one person and injured dozens more.
He added that between 2014 and 2023, SPLC paid at least $3 million to eight people, three of whom were allegedly affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, National Socialist Movement, Aryan Nations affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, the Nationalist Socialist Party of America Nazis and the American Front.
“It was doing the exact opposite of what its told its donors it was doing, not dismantling extremism, but funding it to carry out this scheme,” Blanche said. “SPLC created bank accounts in the name of at least five completely fictitious organizations that had no bona fide employees or legitimate business purpose.”
“The money was passed from SPLC to one sham account, to a second sham account, and then loaded onto prepaid cards to give to the members of the extremist groups,” he continued. “This was designed to shield the source of those funds, and because of this, SPLC is also charged with one count, as I said earlier, of conspiracy to commit money laundering.”
Patel said the FBI’s investigation revealed the SPLC also attempted to hide their alleged criminal activity from financial banking networks.
“They set up shell companies and entities around America so that the financial institutions that we rely on as everyday Americans were deceived in believing that money was not coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center in the perpetration of this scheme and fraud, but rather fictitious entities,” Patel said. “They stood up to perpetuate this ongoing fraud. This is a serious and egregious violation of a group that purported to dismantle violent extremist groups, but in turn actually only fueled that hatred.”
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