Investigators believe a 19-year-old Winnipeg man accused of committing terrorism offences may have been radicalized online. Manitoba RCMP confirmed the charges against Nevin Thunder Young stem from a three-month graffiti spree he is alleged to have committed late last year. “Winnipeg Police Service conducted their investigation into the mischief charges and, as a result of that investigation, identified material that falls within the national security mandate,” RCMP spokesperson Christina Zoernig said in an email statement Thursday. (…) Investigators have linked Young to the international racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist group known as M.K.Y., Zoernig said. The Winnipeg Police Service launched an initial investigation after swastikas and M.K.Y. initials were spray-painted onto Westdale Community Centre and nearby buildings. M.K.Y., also known as Manic Murder Cult, is an international neo-Nazi group that promotes violence against racial minorities and the Jewish community. “If this was not intervened, it could be a deadly consequence,” said Kawser Ahmed, an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Winnipeg who studies online radicalization. Extremist groups frequently target people who are loners, or have mental and social barriers. They may have previously expressed problems with authority or an interest in anarchism and alternative political beliefs, he said. Such groups identify potential recruits through online platforms, including forums, social media and video games. Recruiters then spend weeks or months grooming their targets. Once trust has been developed, they encourage the person to commit crimes to establish their allegiance and radicalize them further, Ahmed said. He pointed to the arrest of a 20-year-old Georgian man in Moldova last year. Police accused him of being a leader in M.K.Y, and said he was planning and soliciting a mass-casualty attack in New York City. According to U.S. indictment documents, the suspect sent online messages to an undercover FBI agent that said: “We ask people for brutal beating, arson/explosion or murder vids on camera.”
via winniepegfreepress: RCMP cite ‘online radicalization’ in investigation of city man accused of terrorism, linked to neo-Nazi group
siehe auch: 19-year-old Winnipeg man allegedly tied to neo-Nazi group ‘not a crazy terrorist,’ grandmother says Probe found links to international extremist group, online radicalization: RCMP (…) Nepinak said Young has ADHD and global developmental delay, a diagnosis for children who are significantly delayed in their development. She said the 19-year-old was still attending high school, and wasn’t expected to graduate until he was 21 because of accommodations due to learning challenges. “He’s not a crazy terrorist. He’s just a poor boy that has issues,” she said. (…) Georgios Samaras, an assistant professor of public policy at King’s College London who specializes in extremism, said M.K.Y. is just one in a network of small groups of neo-Nazis often radicalized online, but trying to translate that into offline action.Samaras said the groups “act like cults.” “The people who join such groups … are people disillusioned with society,” he said. “They’re recruited because they want to associate themselves with terrorist activities that will lead to [the] destabilization of society.” (…) Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said groups such as M.K.Y. target the vulnerable. “They’re vulnerable because they’re socially isolated. Maybe they’re vulnerable because they are not entirely well,” he said, adding that it “could be for mental health reasons as well.” An alleged M.K.Y. leader — a 20-year-old from the eastern European nation of Georgia who was arrested last year in Moldova over accusations of planning and soliciting a mass casualty attack in New York City, told an undercover FBI agent on an online messaging platform that in order to join M.K.Y., “we ask people for brutal beating, arson/explosion or murder vids on camera,” according to U.S. indictment documents.