The FBI arrested two people, including a neo-Nazi leader, before they could attack Baltimore’s power grid, officials said on Monday. The suspects, Brandon Russell from Florida and Sarah Clendaniel from Maryland, were taken into custody last week, officials said in a briefing on Monday. The FBI said the plot was racially motivated but did not provide details. About 62 per cent of Baltimore city residents are Black, according to U.S. Census data. Russell is a founder of a neo-Nazi group named Atomwaffen Division that works toward “ushering in the collapse of civilisation,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, a civil rights organisation that tracks US hate groups. Reuters was not immediately able to locate attorneys for the two people arrested. “Clendaniel and Russell conspired and took steps to shoot multiple electrical substations in the Baltimore area aiming to ‘completely destroy this whole city’, but these plans were stopped,” Erek Barron, the US Attorney for the District of Maryland, said in the press briefing. “The accused were not just talking but taking steps to fulfil their threats and further their extremist goals,” said Thomas Sobocinski, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore office. From at least June 2022 to the present, Russell conspired to carry out attacks against critical infrastructure, officials said. Russel provided instruction and location information for the planned attack while Clendaniel felt the plot “will lay this city to waste,” Sobocinski told reporters.
via brisbanetimes: ‘Lay this city to waste’: FBI charges neo-Nazi in racially motivated plot to attack Baltimore grid
siehe auch: US charges neo-Nazi Atomwaffen leader in plot to attack power stations FBI says Sarah Beth Clendaniel, guided by group founder Brandon Russell, planned to acquire a gun and attack five electrical substations around Baltimore. US authorities announced the arrests Monday of the co-founder of the notorious Atomwaffen neo-Nazi group and a woman he met online in the latest extremist plot to attack public electricity facilities. The FBI said Brandon Russell, who helped found Atomwaffen in 2015, was arrested in Florida, after spending four years in prison for possessing bomb-making materials. The woman, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, was arrested in Maryland where she had also spent time in prison for armed robbery. Guided by Russell, Clendaniel had planned to acquire a gun and attack five electrical substations around Baltimore, Maryland, the FBI said. “Sara Beth Clendaniel and Brandon Russell conspired to inflict maximum harm on the power grid, a key component of our critical infrastructure,” said Thomas Sobocinski, a special agent of the FBI Baltimore field office.