On Monday, US prosecutors in Sacramento revealed a 15-count indictment against Dallas Erin Humber, age 34, and Matthew Robert Allison, age 37, for their alleged involvement as key members of a dangerous neo-Nazi propaganda organization known as the Terrorgram Collective. This group is accused of promoting violent acts against federal officials, attacking critical infrastructure, targeting individuals based on race, and supporting terrorist activities both domestically and internationally.
The Terrorgram Collective is responsible for producing four manifestos that mix ideological motivation, admiration for mass murderers, neo-fascist teachings, and instructions for executing chemical weapon strikes, sabotaging infrastructure, and ethnic cleansing operations. These publications have been linked to various ideologically driven violent acts globally, including a mass shooting at an LGBTQ bar in Bratislava, Slovakia in 2022; attacks on power facilities in North Carolina, and attempted attacks in Baltimore and New Jersey; plus a stabbing attack in Eskişehir, Turkey.
According to federal prosecutors, Humber, Allison, and other members of the Terrorgram Collective were in the process of creating a fifth publication dedicated to glorifying neo-Fascist mass murderers, termed as “saints,” such as Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik. The purpose of this document was purportedly to incite more violence among the group’s followers.
Humber and Allison had been under federal investigation since early 2023, but it took authorities around eighteen months to gather sufficient evidence of potential terrorist activities globally, coupled with the British government’s formal prohibition of the Terrorgram Collective in April, before officially issuing an indictment that threatens to incarcerate the accused for over two hundred years. Several individuals connected to the Terrorgram Collective have already faced charges related to terrorism by US authorities to date.
While the arrests are not the first targeting the Terrorgram Collective—Slovakian Pavol ‘SlovakBro’ Beňadik and former Atomwaffen Division founder Brandon Russell hold that honor—the charges against Humber and Allison represent a major change from how the FBI and US Department of Justice approach diffuse “accelerationist” terrorism—the nihilist brand of neo-fascism that seeks to speed up societal collapse and the ascent of a Fourth Reich through mass shootings, bombings, and other acts of terrorism by “lone wolf” actors. Relying on the UK government’s April order declaring the Terrorgram Collective a banned terrorist group and a little-employed section of the “material support for terrorism” section of the US criminal code, federal prosecutors are finally taking an aggressive, whole-of-law approach to violent neo-fascist extremism.
“What it shows is exactly what I’ve been arguing for years: All the tools they need to do this work, they have,” says Michael German, a former FBI special agent and a liberty and national security fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, an NYU School of Law nonprofit. German points to years of arguments by the FBI and Department of Justice that they are hamstrung by existing laws when it comes to tackling violent extremists within the United States. “It also reveals the false separation that the government makes about international and domestic terrorism—white supremacy has always been transnational.”
In 2018, German co-authored a study of federal domestic terrorism prosecutions that argued existing laws were sufficient to tackle domestic terrorism, pointing to a particular statute used to charge Humber and Allison with material support. “It’s the material support statute the DOJ forgot,’ says German.
The UK’s order against the Terrorgram Collective provided American authorities a basis for labeling a diffusive, ostensibly domestic propaganda group as a “transnational terrorist organization” in a detention motion filed on Tuesday, potentially opening Humber and Allison up to deleterious additional charges and sentencing enhancements. In other words, the US is treating Terrorgram in ways similar to how it’s treated Islamist terrorist organizations.
“I would think of this case more like an old-school terrorism investigation, where you have a leadership cell that pushed info to followers and radicalized them into action,” Seamus Hughes, a terrorism researcher at the University of Nebraska Omaha, says of the indictment’s allegations against Humber and Allison.
The role of undercover agents in at least two of the Terrorgram federal prosecutions, DOJ’s repeated citation of the group’s outlawed status in Great Britain as a basis for labeling it a transnational terrorism organization, and the alleged targeting of power infrastructure by participants in the propaganda network, Hughes says, all signify US law enforcement’s evolving strategy in addressing violent right-wing extremism.
“The vast majority of material support cases are jihadi, but right here, they [allegedly] inspired an individual to plot an attack against a power plant,” he notes. “That’s critical infrastructure, and it is pivotal for the material support of terrorism charge.”
The power infrastructure plot Hughes refers to is the case involving Andrew Takhistov, an 18-year-old from New Jersey charged in July with soliciting another individual to attack energy facilities. Court documents portray Takhistov as an intensely hateful individual who dreamt of striking a synagogue and took part in a March 2024 rally by an Atlantic City-based “active club” to support the incarcerated neo-Nazi leader Robert Rundo, and was constantly seen in the Terrogram Collective’s Telegram channels.
Along with allegedly distributing propaganda from the Terrorgram Collective and advocating for lone wolf attacks, federal court records state that Tahkistov boasted about his involvement in creating the group’s “Hard Reset” publication, which he labeled as “the perfect starting guide” for a lone wolf terrorist. He described it as a comprehensive resource including ideology, practical guides, and planning strategies. Tahkistov reportedly discussed these ideas while planning a foiled attack on power stations in North Brunswick and New Brunswick, New Jersey with an undercover FBI agent.
The indictment of Tahkistov not only details his propaganda activities but also his plans to travel to Russia to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, a neo-Nazi faction that fights alongside the Ukrainian military. This group was initiated by Denis Kapustin, a known extremist with ties to the Azov Movement, who also attempted to assist Rundo’s escape from the U.S. in 2018. Tahkistov aimed to enhance his weapons skills and military training, which would enable him to execute ideologically-driven terrorist acts more effectively upon returning to the United States.
Takhistov is currently detained and is scheduled for his next court appearance on October 9. He has entered a plea of not guilty.
Humber and Allison are known radicals with a significant history in extremism. Humber’s radical journey reportedly began decades ago according to a report by Left Coast Right Watch. The research highlights that Humber managed over two dozen far-right propaganda channels on Telegram, disseminating content from the Terrorgram Collective alongside other accelerationist materials.
In recent times, Humber has been involved in vocalizing neo-fascist ideologies through narrations and writings. She has also established connections with notable figures such as convicted domestic terrorist Dylann Roof and Atomwaffen Division founder Brandon Russell, joining their extremist circles. Following Russell’s incarceration, Humber was quoted saying, “There’s no quitting our worldview. It’s a lifelong commitment.” A Telegram post dated March 15, 2022, included in prosecutorial evidence, reveals her role in nurturing potential terrorists, emphasizing that no conventional military or government body is fighting for their cause, but rather “lone wolves” whom she attempts to radicalize, including one impressionable 18-year-old.
Authorities, during a raid on Humber’s home in Elk Grove, seized a collection of Nazi materials, several 3D-printed firearms such as a custom AR-15 pattern rifle, other unregistered weapons, a 3D printer, and illegal high-capacity magazines. She is currently detained without the possibility of bail. Link
Allison, originally from Southern California and now residing in an upscale Boise apartment, is known to have no regular employment. His criminal history is minimal, with a single misdemeanor from June 2022. Although online information about him is scarce, insights suggest a gradual ideological shift to the right since 2018, influenced initially by Tucker Carlson, then by notorious figures like Timothy McVeigh and Robert Jay Mathews, and ultimately aligning with the bleak, skull-masked neo-fascism of Atomwaffen Division from the previous decade.
Operating under the pseudonym “BanThisChannel,” Allison has extensively distributed radical propaganda on Telegram, especially among right-wing channels, reminiscing about past racial incidents with fellow Southern California skinheads and facilitating connections to groups like the Atomwaffen Division. Research indicates his involvement in media production, where he notably crafted several influential propaganda films for the Terrorgram Collective, including a series titled “The BTC Movie Trilogy,” which inspired others within extreme right-wing circles.
Nineteen-year-old Slovakian teenager Juraj Krajčík, involved in the 2022 Bratislava massacre, had extensive interactions for over a year with individuals named Humber and Allison before the incident. He even forwarded his manifesto, which credited Terrorgram Collective’s publications for his motivation, to Allison after committing the massacre. His actions were subsequently praised by the group through their Telegram channels, declaring Krajčík as “their first saint.”
Allison displayed a deep-seated adherence to neo-fascism and white supremacy, expressing through a Telegram post (which was mentioned by federal prosecutors): “I won’t quit til I’m dead. my only goal in life is to fucking destroy the enemy.” Both Allison and Humber were reportedly committed to exposing the informant in the criminal issue concerning Brandon Russell. Allison proposed adding this informant to “The List,” a notorious collection featuring various federal officials, journalists, and others considered foes, earmarked by Terrorgram Collective as assassination targets. In a recorded phone call during August 2023, Humber claimed to possess photographs of the suspected informant and mentioned using facial recognition software for identification.
Upon his arrest last week, Allison was found carrying a backpack filled with contents resembling a “bug-out kit” which included zip ties, a gun, duct tape, ammunition, a knife, lockpicking tools, two phones, and a thumb drive. Further searches at his apartment revealed an assault rifle, two laptops, an external hard drive, another “go bag” loaded with $1,500 in cash, clothes, a passport, ziplock bags with pills, ammunition, a skull mask balaclava, sim cards, and a birth certificate.
Allison purportedly admitted his involvement with the Terrorgram Collective and his actions as outlined in the General Allegations of the Indictment during a videotaped interview following his capture.
Law enforcement view Humber and Allison as threats to their community and to authorities: Humber allegedly collaborated with Russell in attempting to uncover a presumed government witness involved in the Atomwaffen Division founder’s ongoing criminal trial in Baltimore, as per recorded jailhouse telephone conversations. Witnesses scheduled to testify at Russell’s trial in November will do so in a closed courtroom to protect their identities, a rare measure indeed. Prosecutors indicate in a sealing motion that not only are further arrests of Terrogram Collective members expected, but the group’s members are considered extremely dangerous to law enforcement and collaborating witnesses, noting, “Defendants’ many associates, both in the U.S. and internationally, might seek to attack those perceived as law enforcement or cooperators out of revenge for their participation in this case.”
Allison remains in custody without bail and is scheduled for a detention hearing next Wednesday in federal court in Boise.
The significant volume of evidence presented against Humber and Allison in the indictment and detention motion suggests a notable shift in the approach by the authorities towards far-right terrorism and especially ‘lone wolf’ accelerationists who have been linked to massacres from Christchurch in 2019 to Buffalo in 2022.
“The extensive measures taken by the authorities to expose the transnational ties and apply a charge of material support show either a strategic emphasis by the feds, or they were genuinely concerned about these particular individuals,” states Hughes.
Senior attorneys from the DOJ’s Civil Rights and National Security Divisions are noted in the court filings, signaling that senior officials within the Biden administration’s Justice Department oversaw the Terrorgram Collective investigation.
“To construct a case in this manner requires approval from Main Justice,” Hughes mentions. “It was authorized by someone at a high level.”
