ADL: Local was a lead recruiter for neo-Nazi group
All three men charged in the Floyd County case are being held without bond, with one bond hearing motion pending.
An online application to a white supremacist group may offer insight into a Floyd County man’s path to neoNazi ideology.
An investigator with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism attributes a post under an online persona to Luke Lane, a Silver Creek man accused along with other members of The Base of plotting to murder a Bartow County couple.
Lane and two other men were members of the white supremacist terrorist group. However, Joanna Mendelson, a senior investigative researcher with the ADL, said Lane served a specific role within the group.
“We have documented his activity as a lead recruiter for The Base,” Mendelson said.
Starting off with a mainstream right-wing ideology, Lane then moved to a more hardcore white supremacist belief system, she said. As part of, or because of, his involvement in many online groups promoting neo-Nazi beliefs, he became more and more involved within those groups.
While involvement in those groups is not illegal, Lane — along with Michael Helterbrand, 25, of Dalton; and Jacob Kaderli, 19, of Dacula — is charged with criminal attempt to commit murder and participating in a criminal gang.
FBI and Floyd County Police Department investigators stated in court documents that in some of those meetings the three men plotted to kill a Bartow County couple with ties to an Atlanta antifascist group.
Local law enforcement personnel involved in the case said Lane appears to be the only link from The Base to Floyd County.
While the small extremist group existed primarily online, according to court documents, they met up on the approximately 100-acres owned by Lane’s family off John Ingram Road in Silver Creek. In one instance, a criminal affidavit stated, approximately a dozen members of the group came to that property between Oct. 31 and Nov. 3.
So far, seven reported members of The Base have been arrested throughout the country, including several who were linked to paramilitary training on the Floyd County property.
Online personas
In an affidavit for his arrest, as well as an analysis of the group by the Anti-Defamation League, Lane went by several online monikers.
While he primary used “TMB” or “The Militant Buddhist,” he also went by the name of “Draugr,” an undead creature from Norse mythology popularized by The Elder Scrolls video game. The Rome News-Tribune could not independently verify that information.
The ADL credits Lane for making many of the group’s recruiting images for their profiles on websites like Gab. com, Wire and Telegram.
In Jan. 27, 2019, “Draugr” applied for membership on an online forum reserved for hardcore white supremacists. In that application, “Draugr” listed his state of residence as Georgia and affiliated himself with The Base.
In response to the application, a member of the group asks: “Are you the same Draugr in The Base chat on Wire?”
Draugr: “Yea I’m the same one”
This screenshot shows some of the posts by “TMB” or “The Militant Buddhist” regarding The Base. In this case a masked person stands in front of an electrical station holding a copy of “Siege,” a compilation neo-Nazi essays. This screenshot shows some of the posts by “TMB” or “The Militant Buddhist” regarding The Base. Joanna Mendelson, with the AntiDefamation League, stated Luke Lane used those online monikers and was a recruiter for the group.
In that application “Draugr” describes his shift from the mainstream to a neo-Nazi ideology, Mendelson said.
Here are excerpts from that application. Changes are marked with asterisks. It has been edited only to remove racial slurs and add explanation for certain terms: “Hello, my name is draugr. I’m from GA in the USA
♦ I found this groupfrom hearing people talking about it a good bit in different servers online. I registered because from what I have seen this seems to be a really good learning and teaching platform about useful things that most places don’t touch up on enough.
what I am looking to accomplish is to learn about subjects I am lacking in and to put my 2 cents in on things I do know.
my interests are firearms, tactics, survival/bushcraft, self reliant living, history, and competition shooting.
my skills are mostly firearms and “minor” survival skills i’m still fairly new to my other interests so i can’t exaclty say they are a skill intill I expand my knowledge further.
As far as political history I assume that is suposed to cover my past political views so I will list that. I started out as a Republican because that is all I knew but I was mostly libertarian in nature, I quickly switched to libertarianism later in life and then realized that was dysfunctional and wrong as well, I then switched to being an Anarcho Capo ta list because I viewed libertarianism as putting weak men who would not stand for what they should be standing for but realized the massive hole in that belief system so I was essentially an edgy AnCap who didn’t like none whites and belived in borders autistically enough. I always had a strange pull to National Socialism or Nazi sm though ought these stag- es but meverk new anythig about it really and just went with the belifs i knew more about but never truly agreed with fundamentally, I quickly turned to NS (an autistic Alt-Rightversion unfortunately) after talking with Nazismnore and more and having truth put in my face that I couldn’t deny and so I started looking into it myself as well and found that really nothing at all was wrong with it and that I belived really everything it stood for, I was always Nazibut never knew it so that is probably why I skipped around in fringeyish circles looking for the truth I knew existed somewhere, after being a low end NaziI ran across alot of people involved in another forum for hardcore white supremacists, which disbanded in 2017guys after getting involved in the worldview further and they showed and explained the falsehoods of the alt right tier “Nazi” which I myself never liked in the first place for the most part, now I am where I am now (was more complex than that but for sake of time I’ll leave it at that instead of going over every single event).
I’ll admit that I’m not as knowledgeable on some things concerning the worldview so i’m not exactly flawless in everything I may say (so I usually just don’t speak on those subjects at all and isntead I just listen and ask questions so I can further learn) but I do quickly learn when i’m wrong, as should be obvious considerig this is the worldview of singular truth not egotism.
I apologize if this is not thorough enough or if it is bad, just let me know any critiques on anything I said that was stupid.”
Honey pot
The group seems to have scattered now, Mendelson said, with several of its online sites peppered with images claiming the group was actually a government plot to gather and prosecute neoNazis.
Since the arrests and the outing of the group’s leader Rinaldo Nazzaro by The Guardian, there have been accusations that the group was actually a sting operation rather than an actual group.
Nazarro, an American who now lives in Russia, had long been known by the pseudonym “Norman Spear” or “Roman Wolf” and had purchased land in Washington as a permanent training ground for the group, the newspaper reported.
Several of the images liken the arrests to a “honeypot” sting, where those involved are lured in with promises of a relationship — although all evidence indicated the only relationship was finding others of like beliefs.
However, even during the recent investigation it appears The Base was not organized and suffered from infighting. According to the affidavit filed in his arrest, Lane expressed his desire to kill another member of The Base.
He’d discussed details with an informant, identified as UCE in the affidavit, saying that he’d formed a “side organization” — comprised of members of The Base but apart from the group — to engage in the murders.
According to the affidavit, Lane wanted to kill Patrik Jordan Mathews, former Canadian Armed Forces reservist who was in the U.S. illegally, because he’d told Mathews about the plot against the Bartow County couple. Mathews was one of three men arrested on firearms charges on Jan. 16 in Maryland.
While the online presence of The Base has almost disappeared, Mendelson said, former members of the group will likely resurface among other white supremacist gangs.
At this point all three men charged in Floyd County are being held in the Floyd County Jail without bond. However, on Friday the attorney for Kaderli filed a motion for a bond hearing. Floyd County Superior Court Judge Jack Niedrach has not yet scheduled the hearing.