Two leaders of Terrorgram charged for running online white supremacist channels

Leaders of the Terrorgram Collective, a decentralized neo-fascist transnational terrorist group operating on hundreds of channels on the Telegram messaging platform, face a maximum penalty of 220 years in prison.

The terrorists, using the Telegram platform, advanced white supremacist ideology, committed hate crimes, and instructed criminals to undertake terrorist attacks and assassinations of government officials, according to attorneys.

The Justice Department has now announced the end of their reign. The alleged leaders of Terrorgram, Dallas Humber, 34, from Elk Grove, California, and Matthew Allison, 37, from Boise, Idaho, were arrested last Friday and are charged with 15 counts, including soliciting hate crimes and the murder of federal officials.

They conspired to provide materials to support terrorists and spread instructions for building weapons and bombs across a network of Telegram channels. In 2021, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), an international think-tank, exposed more than 200 neo-Nazi pro-terrorism Telegram channels from the Terrorgram network.

“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,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.

Garland compared the Telegram channels run by criminals to “the darkest corners of the internet.”

The indictment alleges that Humber and Allison disseminated several Terrorgram videos and publications that provide specific advice for carrying out crimes, celebrate white supremacist attacks, and provide a hit list of “high-value targets” for assassination. The hit list consisted of US federal, state, and local officials, leaders of private companies, and other organizations.

Many people were targeted because of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

The ideology of the group is centered on the belief that the white race is superior, the society is irreparably corrupt and cannot be saved by political action, and that “violence and terrorism are necessary to ignite a race war and accelerate the collapse of the government and the rise of a white ethnostate,” according to the official press release.

The crimes can yield two men up to 220 years in prison if convicted on all 15 charges:

Terrorgram channels and group chats, operated by the defendant, solicited the users to commit attacks. The pair inspired and directed several individuals who shot three people (killing two) outside of an LGBTQI+ bar in Slovakia, who planned an attack on energy facilities in New Jersey, and who stabbed five people near a mosque in Turkey.

“They also doxxed and solicited the murder of federal officials, conspired to provide material support to terrorists, and distributed information about explosives that they intended to be used in committing crimes of violence,” said US Attorney Phillip A. Talbert.

Telegram has become a playground for extremists and other criminals, and Pavel Durov, the chief executive of the platform with 900 million active monthly users, faces charges in France over the platform's lack of moderation.