2 white supremacists tried to spark race war by soliciting murder and hate crimes on Telegram, feds say

Two white supremacists hoping to start a race war were charged with leading a digital terror group on Telegram and directing followers to commit hate crimes, including killing federal officials, prosecutors said.

Dallas Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, California, and Matthew Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho, are charged in the 15-count indictment with soliciting hate crimes, soliciting the murder of federal officials and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, according to a Monday statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California.

Federal prosecutors allege Humber and Allison are leaders of the “Terrorgram Collective,” described by authorities as a “transnational terrorist group.”

Humber and Allison were arrested on Friday, prosecutors said.

According to the indictment, unsealed on Monday, the defendants’ terror group operated on the digital messaging platform Telegram. The group promoted white supremacist “accelerationism”: “an ideology centered on the belief that the white race is superior; that 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,” prosecutors said.

No one with Telegram was immediately reached Monday afternoon for comment. It was not immediately clear on Monday afternoon if Humber and Allison have retained attorneys.

While on the platform, Humber and Allison are accused of spreading videos and publications that provided specific advice for carrying out crimes, celebrating white terrorism attacks and providing a list of “high-value targets” for assassination. The list included names of federal, state and local officials, and leaders of private companies, many whom were targeted because of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity, prosecutors said.

The defendants operated channels and group chats where they solicited group members to commit attacks.

The planned attacks were motivated by enemies of the white race, and described hitting government buildings, including energy facilities, prosecutors said.

The planned attacks also included “high-value targets” like politicians and government officials whose murders would “sow chaos and further accelerate the government’s downfall,” prosecutors said.

Some of those planned attacks inspired by the defendants were actually carried out, or were foiled, prosecutors said. They include a person who shot three people, killing two, outside an LGBTQ bar in Slovakia, an individual who planned an attack on an energy facility in New Jersey and a person who stabbed five people near a mosque in Turkey, prosecutors said.

They were charged with one count of conspiracy, four counts of soliciting hate crimes, three counts of soliciting the murder of federal officials, three counts of doxing federal officials, one count of threatening communications, two counts of distributing bombmaking instructions, and one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, prosecutors said.

If convicted on all charges, they face a maximum penalty of 220 years in prison, prosecutors said. Allison is expected to make his first court appearance on Tuesday, according to prosecutors.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in the statement the arrest and indictment of the suspects “are a warning that committing hate-fueled crimes in the darkest corners of the internet will not hide you, and soliciting terrorist attacks from behind a screen will not protect you.”

The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California Phillip A. Talbert said in the statement: “The defendants solicited murders and hate crimes based on the race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, and gender identity of others.”