US says alleged white supremacists tried to use Telegram to spark race war

An American flag waves outside the US Department of Justice Building in Washington, US, December 15, 2020. REUTERS

US prosecutors unveiled criminal charges on Monday against two alleged leaders of a white supremacist gang, saying they used the Telegram social media site to solicit attacks on Black, Jewish, LGBTQ people and immigrants aiming to incite a race war.

The group, dubbed "The Terrorgram Collective", used the site to celebrate white supremacist attacks around the world and solicit racially motivated violence, prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed in federal court in Sacramento, California.

Dallas Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, California, and Matthew Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho, each face 15 criminal counts, including soliciting hate crimes and conspiring to provide material support to terrorism. The two were in custody, officials said; it was not immediately clear if they had lawyers.

The most serious charges carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

The group's targets also included US government officials and critical infrastructure sites, with an overall goal of causing societal collapse in the United States, US Justice Department officials said during an online news conference.

"This indictment reflects the department's response to the new technological face of white supremacist violence as those seeking mass violence expand their reach online to encourage, solicit and facilitate terrorist activities." said Kristen Clarke, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

Humber and Allison helped create and promote a document that sought to justify the group's ideology and included detailed instructions on carrying out terror attacks, including how to build bombs, according to the indictment.

The pair also collaborated on a list of "high-value" targets for assassination that included a sitting US senator and a federal judge who were viewed as enemies of the white supremacist cause, prosecutors alleged.

Humber and Allison became leaders of the group in 2022, helping oversee a network of Telegram channels and group chats that offered support for users to commit white supremacist violence, according to the indictment.

The messaging app has been under scrutiny after its founder, Russian-born Pavel Durov, was detained in France last month as part of an investigation related to child pornography, drug trafficking and fraudulent transactions associated with the app.

Durov, who has since been released, condemned the decision to detain him, which touched off a renewed debate about free speech and the culpability of social media executives for content on their platforms.

Durov has vowed to tackle criticism of the app's moderation policies. A Telegram spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment on the indictment.