The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday that two leaders of the Terrorgram Collective, a transnational terrorist group, have been charged with multiple federal offenses including soliciting hate crimes, soliciting the murder of federal officials, and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.
Dallas Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, California, and Matthew Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho, were arrested on Friday by law enforcement officials. The 15-count indictment, unsealed today, alleges that Humber and Allison led the Terrorgram Collective, which operates on the Telegram messaging platform to promote white supremacist accelerationism.
According to the indictment, the defendants contributed to and disseminated videos and publications providing specific advice for carrying out crimes, celebrating white supremacist attacks, and offering a hit list of “high-value targets” for assassination.
These targets included federal, state, and local officials, as well as leaders of private companies and non-governmental organizations, many targeted due to their race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
The Justice Department alleges that Humber and Allison operated Terrorgram channels and group chats where they solicited users to commit attacks to achieve the group’s goals of accelerationism and white supremacy. They allegedly provided instructions for attacks on government infrastructure and “high-value targets,” which they believed would ignite a race war and accelerate societal collapse.
The indictment also links the Terrorgram Collective to several real-world attacks, including a shooting at an LGBT bar in Slovakia, a planned attack on energy facilities in New Jersey, and a stabbing near a mosque in Turkey.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland stated, “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.”
If convicted on all charges, Humber and Allison each face a maximum penalty of 220 years in prison. The case was investigated by the FBI Sacramento and Salt Lake City Field Offices, with assistance from various domestic and foreign law enforcement agencies.
The Justice Department emphasized that an indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Source: DOJ
