WASHINGTON – U.S. prosecutors announced criminal charges Monday against two alleged white supremacist gang leaders who allegedly used the social media site Telegram to incite attacks against Black people, Jews, LGBTQ people and immigrants in an attempt to foment a race war.
Prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed in federal court in Sacramento, California that the group, known as the Terrorgram Collective, used the site to glorify white supremacist attacks around the world and incite racially motivated violence.
Dallas Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, California, and Matthew Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho, are each charged with 15 counts, including inciting a hate crime and conspiring to provide material support to terrorism.
Officials said the two men were in custody but it was not immediately clear whether they had lawyers.
The most serious offence carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
A Justice Department official said at an online press conference that the group's targets include US government officials and critical infrastructure facilities, and that its overall goal is to cause societal collapse in the United States.
“This indictment reflects the Department of Justice's response to a new, technological dimension of white supremacist violence as those seeking mass violence expand their influence online to encourage, recruit, and facilitate terrorist activity,” said Kristen Clarke, Director of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
According to the indictment, Humber and Allison helped create and promote documents that justified the group's ideology and contained detailed instructions for carrying out terrorist attacks, including how to make a bomb.
Prosecutors allege the two also worked together to draw up a list of “high-value” assassination targets, including sitting senators and federal judges who were perceived to be enemies of white supremacy.
According to the indictment, Humber and Allison became leaders of the group in 2022 and helped monitor a network of Telegram channels and group chats that supported users committing white supremacist violence.
The messaging app has been under intense scrutiny since its Russian-born founder, Pavel Durov, was detained in France last month as part of an investigation into child pornography, drug trafficking and fraud transactions linked to the app.
Durov, who has since been released, denounced the decision to detain him, which has sparked fresh debate about freedom of speech and the responsibility of social media executives for the content on their platforms.
Durov vowed to address criticism of the app's moderation policies.
A Telegram spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment on the indictment.
