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---
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category: "U.S. Government"
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tags:
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- organization
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- u.s.-government
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- contra-war
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summary: The U.S. government, through the CIA, NSC, and State Department, orchestrated support for the Contra war while simultaneously protecting Contra-connected drug traffickers from prosecution.
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---
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The U.S. government, through the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], [[National Security Council]], and [[State Department]], orchestrated support for the [[Contras|Contra]] war while simultaneously protecting Contra-connected drug traffickers from prosecution. The contradiction between the government's public anti-drug stance and its covert protection of drug-running allies was the central theme of the [[Dark Alliance]] investigation.[^1]
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### The Dual Policy
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While the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration waged a public "War on Drugs" and Ronald Reagan and [[George H.W. Bush]] whipped the public into a frenzy over crack dealers, the CIA and NSC were facilitating cocaine trafficking by Contra-connected networks. The government used the [[DEA]] and [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] to investigate street-level dealers while shielding Contra traffickers from prosecution. When [[Celerino Castillo]] sent reports to DEA headquarters about Contra pilots smuggling drugs, they disappeared into a "bureaucratic black hole." The secret 1982 Memorandum of Understanding between CIA Director William Casey and Attorney General William French Smith exempted CIA assets from drug crimes reporting for thirteen years.[^2]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Prologue.
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[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 15, Epilogue.
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@ -10,114 +10,163 @@ tags:
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- Russia
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- DatabaseLeak
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created: 2026-05-21
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updated: 2026-05-22
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summary: "Iron March was a Russian neo-fascist web forum founded by Alisher Mukhitdinov in 2011 that served as the primary incubator for Atomwaffen Division and several other neo-Nazi organizations until its closure in 2017, after which a 2019 database leak exposed 1,207 user accounts and enabled identification of military personnel, law enforcement employees, and organizational moderators across multiple countries."
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updated: 2026-10-07
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aliases:
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- Iron March
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- IronMarch
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- Iron March forum
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- ironmarch.org
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- International Third Positionist Federation
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- ITPF
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summary: "Iron March was a neo-fascist web forum founded in 2011 by Alisher Mukhitdinov, who used the alias Alexander Slavros, that closed in 2017 and whose database leak in 2019 exposed users in several countries."
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start: 2011
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end: 2017
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location: "Russia (online)"
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relations:
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- type: founded
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with: "Alisher Mukhitdinov"
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reverse: true
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start: 2011
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fn: 1
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- type: member_of
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with: "Benjamin Raymond"
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reverse: true
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role: "administrator (member number seven)"
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start: 2011
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fn: 4
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- type: investigated
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with: "Bellingcat"
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reverse: true
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start: 2019
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fn: 3
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---
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[[Iron March]] was a neo-fascist web forum founded in 2011 by [[Russia|Russian]] nationalist [[Alisher Mukhitdinov]] (operating under the alias "Alexander Slavros") and active until its closure in 2017. During its six years of operation, it served as the primary international incubator for a new generation of neo-Nazi and neo-fascist organizations, most significantly [[Atomwaffen Division]], and played a critical role in popularizing [[James Mason]]'s 1992 book *[[Siege]]* among a younger generation of online militants beginning in 2015.
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Iron March was a neo-fascist web forum founded in 2011 by [[Russia|Russian]] nationalist [[Alisher Mukhitdinov]], who used the alias "Alexander Slavros," and taken offline in November 2017.[^1] It was the online meeting place where [[Brandon Russell]] announced [[Atomwaffen Division]] in October 2015, and it served as the starting point for other neo-Nazi and neo-fascist groups, including [[National Action]] in the [[United Kingdom]] and [[Antipodean Resistance]] in [[Australia]]. The forum also gave a new readership to [[James Mason]]'s 1992 book [[Siege]].[^2] Its database was posted online in November 2019.[^3]
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### Founding and Character
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### Founding and Predecessor Forum
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Mukhitdinov launched Iron March in 2011 as an explicitly neo-fascist and neo-Nazi discussion community. The forum's character distinguished it from older white nationalist online spaces by its emphasis on international fascist solidarity rather than American white nationalism specifically, its embrace of philosophical and esoteric neo-Nazism alongside more conventional political content, and its willingness to host members from across the world who were organizing actual offline groups.
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The forum began as the International Third Positionist Federation (ITPF). On June 26, 2010, an unidentified user named Kacen created it on [[Bizhat]], an [[India]]-based hosting service that offered ready-to-use forum templates.[^1] ITPF had no activity until April 2011, when Mukhitdinov created a forum charter and discussion topics under the Slavros alias.[^1] In September 2011 its administrators created Iron March on the ironmarch.org domain using [[Invision Power Services]] software, migrated ITPF's data to it, and shut ITPF down.[^1] A moderator using the screen name "Woman in Black" alluded to unspecified technical problems in private messages, and the reasons for the migration are not known in detail.[^1] ITPF had regional sections for nine European countries and the United States, and most of its users wrote in English.[^1]
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The forum attracted members who were simultaneously producing theory, building organizations, and planning operations, which made it unusually consequential relative to its size. Members who later committed acts of violence, founded violent organizations, or were prosecuted on terrorism-related charges had all been active participants in the Iron March community.
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Slavros created Iron March to fill a niche in the online neo-fascist ecosystem, which lacked a community for "21st century Fascists," meaning a younger generation of adherents to Traditionalist neo-fascism.[^1] The leadership strongly encouraged offline activism, and moderators created sub-forums for any country with enough active members to sustain discussion.[^1]
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### Predecessor: International Third Positionist Federation
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Three premeditated violent plots conclusively linked to Iron March were disrupted between 2011 and 2017 while the forum was online, and the majority of terrorist activity linked to the skull-mask network, as the [[Combating Terrorism Center at West Point]] terms it, occurred after the forum disappeared.[^1] The first, disrupted in 2015, involved Iron March member Lindsay Souvannarath and an accomplice, who were arrested on their way to a planned mass shooting at a shopping mall in [[Halifax, Nova Scotia]]. Souvannarath pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 (R. v. Souvannarath, 2018 NSSC 96), and has since written several letters to Mason.[^1]
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Iron March was not the forum's original identity. On June 26, 2010, an unidentified individual using the username "Kacen" created a forum called the "International Third Positionist Federation" (ITPF) on [[Bizhat]], an India-based hosting service offering ready-to-use forum templates. ITPF showed no activity until April 2011, when Mukhitdinov joined and began creating content. In September 2011, the ITPF administrators migrated the forum to a new domain, ironmarch.org, using [[Invision Power Services]] software, and shut down the ITPF instance. An Iron March moderator using the screen name "Woman in Black" referenced unspecified technical issues as the reason for migration in private messages recovered from the database. The identity of "Kacen" and of "Woman in Black" has not been established in open-source reporting.[^1]
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### Administration and Named Moderators
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### Forum Administration and Named Moderators
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Mukhitdinov, who used the alias "Alexander Slavros," is the only forum administrator whose real identity has been published. A [[BBC News Russian]] investigation by Andrei Soshnikov, published on January 30, 2020, reported that the website slavros.org, which carried Slavros's early nationalist manifestos, was registered in 2011 in the name of Alisher Mukhitdinov, and that he was living in a three-room apartment in southwest [[Moscow]]. The BBC reported that investigators were not looking for him, that he did not speak to its reporters, and that he did not answer on the Signal messenger.[^4] His parents met in the 1980s as students at the [[Moscow State Institute of International Relations]] (MGIMO) and divorced in the 1990s. His father was a businessman, a sponsor of MGIMO, and the head of a foundation that assists labour migrants. His mother worked as a sports journalist.[^4][^5] According to two BBC sources with access to personal databases, a close relative on his father's side, [[Nuritdin Mukhitdinov]], fought at the Battle of Stalingrad, led the government of the [[Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic]] under Khrushchev, later sat on the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and served as Soviet ambassador to [[Syria]].[^4]
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Mukhitdinov ("Alexander Slavros") is the only forum administrator whose real identity has been fully established. [[BBC News Russian]] identified Mukhitdinov in January 2020, following an investigation that located him still living in southwest Moscow in a prefabricated apartment block. His parents had met as students at the [[Moscow State Institute of International Relations]] (MGIMO), an institution with documented ties to Russian state security agencies. His father was a businessman and CEO of a charitable foundation. A close relative on his father's side, [[Nuritdin Mukhitdinov]], was a senior Soviet official who led the Uzbek government under Khrushchev and served as an ambassador. BBC Russia investigated claims that Alisher Mukhitdinov had been pressured by Russian authorities for alleged fundraising for the [[Azov Battalion]] (designated a terrorist organization in Russia) but found no evidence the fundraising occurred. He has not been prosecuted in any jurisdiction as of May 2026.[^2]
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Slavros posted his last message on the forum on November 20, 2017, and the forum and the online journal Rope Culture disappeared a few days later. The BBC reported that the two sites sat on different hosting services.[^4] The American writer Andrew Auernheimer (known as weew) suggested in a podcast with a Canadian Iron March administrator using the name Zeiger that Slavros had withdrawn under pressure from the Russian authorities; Zeiger agreed and said Slavros had shared development plans with him days before the closure.[^4] A user calling himself The Eternal Armenian wrote that Slavros had probably been killed by the FSB, and another anonymous user wrote that Slavros had angered the FSB by raising money for the [[Azov Battalion]], a unit designated as a terrorist organization in Russia. The BBC wrote that although the forum had a thread devoted to Azov, it found no confirmation that Slavros collected funds for the battalion; the Azov press secretary did not answer its questions.[^4][^5]
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[[Benjamin Raymond]], the co-founder of [[National Action]], was a named Iron March administrator. Raymond's administrative role on Iron March predated National Action's founding in 2013, and he served as the organization's primary propagandist. The Iron March database confirmed Raymond's Iron March presence in records surfaced after the 2019 leak.[^3]
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[[Benjamin Raymond]] was, according to the BBC Russian Service, one of the original administrators of Iron March, registered as member number seven (Slavros was number one), and was thanked by Slavros on the last page of his manifesto under the name Benjamin Noyles.[^4] Under that screen name he organized and edited an online journal called ATTACK on the forum, and in 2013 he co-founded National Action with [[Alex Davies]]. He was convicted in 2021 of membership of National Action and sentenced to eight years in prison.[^1] [[Bellingcat]] gives his forum names as "Daddy Terror" or "Benjamin Noyles," and The Ferret refers to him as "Ben Raymond, aka Daddy Terror."[^6][^7] The Latvian news service LSM identified Noyles as an Iron March moderator whose real name is Benjamin Raymond.[^8]
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[[John Cartwright II]], operating under the username "Blood and Iron," joined Iron March in September 2011, immediately after the forum's founding, and served as a moderator. Database records and private message content identified him as a U.S. Navy member last known to be residing in Millersville, Maryland. He participated in Skype groups with other early-period Iron March members. His moderator role placed him within the core administrative cohort alongside Slavros from the forum's inception.[^4]
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[[John Cartwright II]], who used the username "Blood and Iron," joined Iron March in September 2011 and served as a moderator. An Iron March dossier reported that he was a U.S. Navy member and that he took part in Skype groups with other early members.[^9]
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### Atomwaffen Division
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### Atomwaffen Division and Siege
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The most significant organizational product of Iron March was [[Atomwaffen Division]], announced to the community on October 12, 2015 by founding member [[Brandon Russell]]. Russell had been organizing AWD for years before the formal announcement, claiming active recruitment since at least 2012, and AWD's ideological foundation in *Siege* and [[accelerationism]] reflected the content environment Iron March had cultivated.[^3]
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Brandon Russell announced Atomwaffen Division to the forum on October 12, 2015, under the screen name "Odin," and claimed that the group already had about 40 members. Slavros subsequently created a dedicated Atomwaffen thread on Iron March, where much of the group's recruitment took place.[^1] The Program on Extremism at George Washington University dates Russell's first appearance on Iron March to March 2014.[^10] Bellingcat reports that posts and photographs by Russell ("Odin") place him with [[Devon Arthurs]], then 16, in abandoned buildings in April 2015 during the early stage of the group, and with the founder of National Action outside [[Buckingham Palace]] a month later.[^6] The group's ideology drew on Siege and [[accelerationism]].
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The forum's 2015 rediscovery and promotion of *Siege* was the critical event in *Siege*'s resurgence as an influential text. James Mason's essays had been largely ignored since the 1992 compilation, but Iron March gave them a global neo-Nazi audience that included the membership base from which AWD recruited.[^5]
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The [[United States Department of Justice]] announced on January 9, 2018 that Brandon Clint Russell, 22, of [[Tampa, Florida]], had been sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew to five years in federal prison for possessing an unregistered destructive device and for unlawful storage of explosive material. He had pleaded guilty on September 27, 2017. The release describes the Tampa police response to a double homicide on May 19, 2017, at an apartment in the Tampa Palms area where Russell lived with the alleged shooter, Arthurs. It states that, according to Arthurs, the four roommates were active members of the "Atomwaffen," a neo-Nazi group "started and led by Russell." Officers found the explosive HMTD and other precursors in the garage, and Russell admitted that he had manufactured the HMTD and that he was a member of the "Atomwaffen."[^11] The May 2017 killings are covered at [[2017 Tampa Atomwaffen Murders]].
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After a six-day trial, a jury found Russell guilty of conspiracy to damage an energy facility in [[Maryland]].[^12] On August 7, 2025, Senior U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar sentenced him, then 30 and of [[Orlando, Florida]], to 20 years in federal prison followed by lifetime supervised release. The conspiracy involved transformers in electrical substations around Baltimore from at least November 2022 until February 3, 2023. His co-conspirator, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, was sentenced to 18 years.[^13]
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The [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] Extremist File on James Mason states that since 2015 members of the Iron March forum, hate groups connected to it such as Atomwaffen Division, and their fellow travelers have advocated that Mason's visions in Siege present the only way forward.[^2]
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### Organizations Incubated by Iron March
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Beyond Atomwaffen Division, the forum directly produced or provided the founding membership for:
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Beyond Atomwaffen Division, the forum directly preceded or supplied founding membership for several other groups. The first successful local group to emerge from Iron March was National Action in the United Kingdom, founded in 2013 by Raymond and Davies.[^1] National Action was added to Schedule 2 of the [[Terrorism Act 2000]] by an order made on December 15, 2016.[^14]
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[[National Action]] (UK, 2013): Founded by Benjamin Raymond (Iron March administrator) and [[Alex Davies]], who used the username "Daddy Terror" on Iron March. National Action was the first offline organization to emerge directly from Iron March and served as a model for subsequent formations.[^3]
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Antipodean Resistance in Australia was incubated on Iron March. [[Julie Nathan]] of the [[Executive Council of Australian Jewry]] wrote that the group began on the forum in February 2016 with a handful of people and, by October 10, 2016, had a name, a logo, and its own sub-forum.[^15] The group was announced on the forum on October 10, 2016, with an instruction to Australian users to contact the handles "Xav" and "Kehlsteinhaus."[^1] Nathan wrote that a member using the handle "Xav" posted the group's catchphrase on the forum.[^15] The White Rose Society identified "Xav" as the Melbourne-based [[Tim Heibach]] from the leaked private messages and account information, after first publishing a different name that it later corrected. It also identified the Iron March user "HalArts" (also "Rusty Sandusky"), who described himself as designing posters for Antipodean Resistance, as [[Nathaniel Anderson]], and the user "VandalNationalist" as [[Jacob Hersant]].[^16]
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[[Antipodean Resistance]] (Australia, October 2016): Founded by [[Tim Heibach]] (username "Xav") and announced to the Iron March community on October 10, 2016, encouraging Australian Iron March users to contact "Xav" and "Kehlsteinhaus." The Iron March database later exposed Heibach's real identity. Other identified founding-era members included [[Nathaniel Anderson]] (username "HalArts," also "Rusty Sandusky") and [[Jacob Hersant]].[^6]
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### The 2019 Database Leak
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### Database Leak: Technical Record
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The Iron March SQL database was posted to the [[Internet Archive]] on November 6, 2019, by a user identifying as "antifa-data."[^3] Bellingcat's how-to guide published the same day states that the Internet Archive has removed the dataset, that the information remained available through [[Distributed Denial of Secrets]], and that the database was also available as a torrent file and a magnet link.[^3]
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The Iron March SQL database was uploaded to the [[Internet Archive]] on November 6, 2019, by a user operating under the handle "antifa-data," implying an activist motivation. The leaker's identity has not been established in any public record. The Internet Archive removed the dataset shortly after it was posted, but torrent links published by [[Bellingcat]] kept it circulating among researchers and journalists.
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The leak contained user names, registered email addresses, the IP addresses of users, all public posts, and the private messages between members.[^3] The database is an SQL dump that can be read with MySQL Workbench or DB Browser for SQLite. The torrent also included exported spreadsheets for the main tables, including core_members, core_message_posts, and core_message_topics. Post times are stored as Unix timestamps.[^3] The BBC Russian Service reported that a U.S. site called Jewish Worker turned the leak into a searchable database, and that researchers around the world began identifying users.[^4]
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The leaked archive contained a complete snapshot of the forum as it existed shortly before the site went offline in November 2017. Specific data fields included: member IDs, usernames, registration email addresses, IP addresses used at registration and login, registration timestamps (Unix format), two-factor authentication logs, all public forum posts, all private message threads (approximately 22,000 conversations), and forum administration data. The SQL dump required a database viewer such as MySQL Workbench or DB Browser for SQLite, but the same torrent included exported spreadsheets organized by field, lowering the technical barrier for non-specialist researchers.[^7]
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Bellingcat's how-to also observed that a number of users identified themselves as active serving members of Western militaries, especially in the United States. Bellingcat published a list of potential research leads for those users and invited journalists and investigators to follow them up.[^3] [[Gizmodo]] reported on November 8, 2019 that Bellingcat's review found users compiling information on those users in a Google spreadsheet.[^17] Bellingcat's December 19, 2019 analysis published a map of the sign-up IP addresses in the leak and described the majority of users as located in the United States.[^6] [[Lawfare]] reports that Vice and Bellingcat found at least eight members of Iron March and Atomwaffen Division serving in the U.S. military.[^18]
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The researcher operating under the handle "Jewish Worker" built an independent searchable website from the raw data, making the dump accessible to non-technical journalists and activists who could query usernames, email addresses, and post content without managing their own SQL environment.[^8]
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The [[MIT Media Lab]] project "Investigating the Iron March Forums with Computational Tools," active from October 2020 to June 2023, applied network analysis and natural language processing to the forum. Its overview states that the project "provides evidence that extremist groups may start out ideologically centered, but that their growth may be understood as a process of social bonding," and that this "challenges the notion that ideologies themselves need to be challenged in order to curb extremist movements."[^19]
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Bellingcat published a how-to guide for accessing and interpreting the data on the same day as the leak, November 6, 2019, and separately produced an interactive map geolocating all forum activity originating from IP addresses near U.S. military installations. Bellingcat also compiled a spreadsheet of all private message threads involving users who identified themselves as active-duty military.[^7]
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### Forum Statistics
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The [[MIT Media Lab]] undertook a computational analysis of the forum corpus using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling and network analysis, finding that Iron March grew through social bonding rather than ideological convergence, a finding with implications for counter-extremism strategy.[^9]
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When the forum was shut down in November 2017 it had 1,207 regular users. Of the 183 users who reported their age, the average was 28 and the median was 26. Of the 1,185 accounts that did not appear to hide their IP addresses, at least 73 percent were created in English-speaking countries: 52 percent American, 9 percent United Kingdom, 7 percent Canadian, and 5 percent Australian.[^18] Of the 1,174 users who posted at least once, the top 5 percent of posters (58 users) wrote 54 percent of all public posts.[^18] Those users wrote more than 195,000 public posts and held 4,500 private conversations.[^18]
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### Forum Statistics and Geographic Distribution
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The user registry shows that 15,218 accounts existed at some point, of which only 1,207 are represented in the account database, which reflects the userbase as it stood when downloaded in late 2017 (banned and deleted accounts were wiped).[^1] The BBC Russian Service put the leak at about 1,200 accounts.[^4] Among non-English-speaking countries, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Brazil lead IP registrations.[^1] The SPLC had scraped well over 150,000 of the public posts before the leak.[^3]
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At the time of its 2017 closure, Iron March had 1,207 registered user accounts. Those users produced more than 195,000 public posts and approximately 4,500 to 22,000 private message threads (sources vary in granularity). The median self-reported age of the user base was 26, and the average was 28, based on data from 183 users who disclosed their age.
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### Military and Government Identifications
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Among the 1,185 accounts that did not mask their IP addresses with a VPN or proxy, the dominant geographic concentrations outside the English-speaking world were the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Brazil. Within the English-speaking world, U.S.-based registrations dominated, followed by the [[United Kingdom]] (approximately 9 percent), [[Canada]] (approximately 7 percent), and [[Australia]] (approximately 5 percent).[^10]
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[[David Cole Tarkington]] used the username "The Yank" on Iron March. Gizmodo reported on March 12, 2020 that his private messages show him as a 15-year-old newcomer in 2013 who became a prolific Atomwaffen recruiter and attempted to enlist at least 12 Iron March members by the end of 2016.[^20] Naval documents cited by Gizmodo place him as an aviation machinist's mate apprentice with [[Strike Fighter Squadron VFA-41]] at [[Naval Air Station Lemoore]], California; he enlisted in the [[U.S. Navy]] in July 2019 and graduated from the Naval Air Technical Training Center in Pensacola, Florida, in December 2019.[^20] Cmdr. Ron Flanders, spokesperson for Naval Air Forces Pacific Fleet, told Gizmodo that the Navy was investigating and that it "would not be appropriate for me to comment on an ongoing investigation," and confirmed that the [[NCIS]] was looking into the matter based on information provided by Gizmodo.[^20] On April 19, 2020, Flanders said of Tarkington's departure that "His separation was administrative in nature."[^21]
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### Verified Real-Name Mappings: Military and Government Personnel
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[[Travis Frey]] used the username "In Hoc Signo Vinces" on Iron March and joined the forum in 2013. [[Vice News|Vice]] reported in January 2020 that he was a captain at the [[Nevada Southern Detention Center]] in [[Pahrump, Nevada]], an [[ICE]] detention facility operated by [[CoreCivic]].[^22] Vice reported that in June 2017 he wrote on the forum, "I am interested in helping build the Indiana TWP," the [[Traditionalist Workers Party]], and later wrote that he was not a member and had not heard back from the party, and that he posted at least a dozen times between 2016 and 2017 while working as head of security at another CoreCivic facility in [[Indianapolis]].[^23] CoreCivic's director of public affairs, Amanda Gilchrist, said that the employee had been placed on administrative leave while the company reviewed the information that had come to light.[^23] An ICE spokesperson said that ICE holds those working in its facilities to high standards of professional conduct.[^22] On January 10, 2020, Senators [[Catherine Cortez Masto]] and [[Jacky Rosen]] wrote to the [[Department of Homeland Security]] Office of Inspector General requesting an investigation into conditions at the Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump.[^24]
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The database leak directly enabled identification of active-duty military and government employees whose extremist activity had been pseudonymous. The following cases are documented in published investigative reporting:
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[[Boris Mihajlovic]] was one of the administrators of Iron March and among its most prolific contributors, with nearly 2,500 posts in two years, according to [[CBC News]], which reported on December 4, 2019. He used the alias "Moonlord." In private messages, he claimed to have joined the Calgary chapter of [[Blood and Honour]] in 2012. He joined the [[Canadian Armed Forces]] Naval Reserve in early 2016 and was promoted to leading seaman in April 2018. CBC reported that he worked as a supply technician for [[HMCS Tecumseh]], a naval reserve division in [[Calgary]], and that he told CBC he now rejects those views.[^25] CBC's national investigation found nine users traced to [[Canada]] who claimed to be in the Armed Forces or hoped to join, and it identified the Calgary-linked Moonlord account as particularly active in encouraging other users to join.[^26] The Canadian Armed Forces had issued an internal report the previous summer that found some of its soldiers were members of hate groups, including Atomwaffen Division.[^26]
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[[David Cole Tarkington]] used the username "The Yank" and was active on Iron March from 2013 to 2016, at which point he was serving as an aviation machinist mate's apprentice with [[Strike Fighter Squadron VFA-41]] at [[Naval Air Station Lemoore]], California. Private message records showed he attempted to recruit at least 12 Iron March members into Atomwaffen Division. [[Gizmodo]] reporters identified him in March 2020 and notified the Navy. [[NCIS]] opened an investigation. Tarkington was administratively separated from the Navy in April 2020. No criminal charges were filed.[^11]
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After a joint Newsy and Bellingcat report, the Navy confirmed that it had an active-duty member in the forum, and the report connected four further users to active-duty military service at the time of their posts.[^27] The Iron March Dossiers identified the user "22goy" as [[Thomas Adam Guba]], an employee of the [[Naval Medical Logistics Command]] in [[Baltimore]], and identified the users "Ozymandias" and "Turok" as [[Van Ramsey Laws-Spencer]], an active-duty Marine stationed at [[Camp Pendleton]], California.[^28][^29]
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[[Travis Frey]] used the username "In Hoc Signo Vinces" and joined Iron March in 2013. He posted at least a dozen times between 2016 and 2017 while working as head of security at a [[CoreCivic]] jail in Indianapolis. By the time of his identification in January 2020, he had been promoted to captain at the [[Nevada Southern Detention Center]], a CoreCivic facility contracted with [[ICE]]. Database records included Frey's personal email address, phone number, birthday, and place of residence, enabling [[Vice News]] to identify him directly. Forum posts showed Frey describing himself as a "fascist" and expressing interest in organizing for the [[Traditionalist Workers Party]] in Indiana. CoreCivic placed him on administrative leave following Vice's January 2020 reporting. U.S. Senators called for a federal investigation into the Nevada facility.[^12]
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||||
[[Raivis Zeltits]], secretary general of [[Latvia]]'s [[National Alliance]], was linked by [[LSM]] on November 12, 2019 to the Iron March account "Latvian_Integralist," whose Gmail address carried his name (the party website lists a version of the address with the first and second names transposed). LSM reported that the account's messages included a request to the moderator Benjamin Noyles, signed "Raivis Z," to delete fragments of a quoted letter on party strategy. Asked whether he wrote the messages, Zeltits referred LSM to a Facebook post in which he said he was 20 at the time of the postings and wrote, "I have never concealed that I was more radical in the maximalism of my youth," and "I apologize to those close to me, supporters and to the National Alliance for this shadow."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Thomas Adam Guba]], using the username "22goy," registered with the email address tguba2004@hotmail.com, enabling his identification as a Navy employee at the [[Naval Medical Logistics Command]] in Baltimore, Maryland. His photograph appeared in the Naval Medical Logistics Command journal "Logistically Speaking" in its October-December 2017 issue, shortly after he had gone inactive on Iron March. Previously he had served as an aviation structural mechanic.[^13]
|
||||
[[Benjamin Hannam]], a probationary [[Metropolitan Police Service]] constable who joined the force in 2018, posted on Iron March under the name "Anglisc." Counter-terrorism detectives found his involvement in February 2020 after the leak, and he was arrested the following month.[^30] He was found guilty at the [[Old Bailey]] on April 1, 2021 of membership of National Action, fraud by false representation (lying on his application and vetting forms), and possession of terrorist documents (a knife-fighting guide and an explosives guide), and was reported to be the first serving British police officer convicted of a terrorism offence.[^30][^31] Jenny Hopkins, head of the [[Crown Prosecution Service]] Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: "Benjamin Hannam lied on his police application and vetting forms in an attempt to hide his dangerous and racist beliefs."[^32] He had separately admitted possessing an indecent image of a child. On April 30, 2021, Judge Anthony Leonard sentenced him to four years and four months in custody with a further year on extended licence, telling him: "I consider what you did to be very serious and you have harmed public trust in the police by your deceit." The Metropolitan Police had dismissed him for gross misconduct.[^31] Police Professional reported, from the prosecution case, that he signed up to Iron March in March 2016 when he joined the London branch of National Action and later tried to recruit a new member through the forum.[^31]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Van Ramsey Laws-Spencer]] was linked to two Iron March accounts: "Ozymandias" (registered with email pentaghast123@gmail.com, active October 2013 to April 2016) and "Turok" (email including Laws-Spencer's name, active August to October 2012). Multiple social media profiles operating under the "pentaghast123" username corroborated the identification. At the time of identification, Laws-Spencer was an active-duty Marine stationed at [[Camp Pendleton]], California.[^14]
|
||||
[[Nicholas Waugh]], a Scottish businessman who used the username "HaggiSS," was identified in a joint investigation with the [[Daily Record]] and [[The Ferret]]. The Ferret reported that he was involved with [[Scottish Dawn]] and promoted both National Action and Scottish Dawn online under that pseudonym.[^7] The Ferret reported that on October 14, 2014 he wrote to National Action founder Ben Raymond, "aka Daddy Terror," asking for "a few bundles of stickers," and that he messaged fascists in Lithuania, Bulgaria and Australia to build international links and encouraged people to attend demonstrations in the UK. The Ferret wrote that Waugh "appears to have been a leading figure with National Action before it was banned" and that "There is no suggestion he is currently involved."[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Boris Mihajlovic]] posted on Iron March in 2016, encouraging other Canadian users to enlist in the armed forces for weapons training. [[CBC News]] identified him and confirmed he had been promoted to leading seaman in April 2018 and was working as a supply technician for [[HMCS Tecumseh]], a naval reserve establishment in Calgary. When contacted, Mihajlovic acknowledged the posts and stated he had left extremist activity behind.[^15]
|
||||
### Platform Response
|
||||
|
||||
### Verified Real-Name Mappings: Other Notable Identifications
|
||||
In December 2019, [[Airbnb]] told Gizmodo that it had banned more than 60 users of Iron March. It said that it identified the accounts through its normal identity-verification system and that all the Iron March users it found on the platform appeared to have been guests rather than hosts.[^33]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Raivis Zeltits]], the Secretary-General of Latvia's [[National Alliance]] party from 2014 to 2020, was identified through the database on November 12, 2019, as the user "Latvian_Integralist." Zeltits acknowledged the account in a Facebook post, stating he had written those posts at age 20 and no longer held those views. He remained in contact with Iron March administrator Benjamin Raymond as late as 2015. The identification triggered calls for his resignation within Latvian political circles.[^16]
|
||||
### Government Designations
|
||||
|
||||
[[Benjamin Hannam]], a probationary constable with the [[Metropolitan Police Service]] (London), was identified through Iron March database records as a member of [[National Action]] before he applied to join the police. He had signed up to Iron March when he joined National Action's London branch in March 2016, more than two years before his police application. He was convicted on April 1, 2021 at the [[Old Bailey]] of National Action membership, two counts of fraud by false representation, two counts of possessing terrorist documents, and possession of a prohibited image of a child. He was sentenced to four years and four months, the first serving UK police officer convicted of terrorism-related offenses. The Iron March database was the mechanism through which his connection to National Action was first established.[^17]
|
||||
In the United Kingdom, [[Sonnenkrieg Division]] was proscribed by orders the Home Secretary laid in Parliament on February 24, 2020, which also recognized System Resistance Network as an alias of the already proscribed National Action.[^34] A 2021 order added "Atomwaffen Division (AWD), including National Socialist Order (NSO)" to Schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000, after the entry for [[Feuerkrieg Division]]. The order was made on April 22, 2021.[^35]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Nicholas Waugh]] (username "HaggiSS"), a Scottish businessman from Aberdeenshire, was identified by a joint investigation by [[The Ferret]] and [[Daily Record]]. The database showed Waugh had attempted to order National Action stickers, messaged fascists in Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Australia to build international links, and encouraged members to attend demonstrations in the UK. He operated an Etsy shop named "Wodenstone" selling handcrafted traditional jewelry. He was identified as a significant figure in Scottish National Action and [[Scottish Dawn]] before proscription.[^18]
|
||||
In Canada, Atomwaffen Division was among 13 groups added to the list of terrorist entities in a February 3, 2021 release from [[Public Safety Canada]]. The release placed it in the ideologically motivated violent extremist category, alongside [[The Base]], the [[Proud Boys]], and the [[Russian Imperial Movement]].[^36]
|
||||
|
||||
### Airbnb Platform Response
|
||||
Australia's register of listed terrorist organisations shows Sonnenkrieg Division listed on August 12, 2021, The Base on December 10, 2021, National Socialist Order (NSO) on February 18, 2022, and Terrorgram on June 27, 2025.[^37] The Minister for Home Affairs' release of February 17, 2022 stated that the government had listed the National Socialist Order, "formerly known as Atomwaffen Division," with effect immediately, and described it as "a nationalist and racist violent extremist group based in the United States."[^38] The [[United States Department of State]] list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, as retrieved on October 7, 2026, contains no entry for Atomwaffen Division or the National Socialist Order.[^39]
|
||||
|
||||
In December 2019, [[Airbnb]] cross-referenced its identity-verification database against the leaked Iron March member list and banned more than 60 confirmed Iron March users from the platform. All identified Iron March accounts on Airbnb had been guest accounts rather than host accounts.[^19]
|
||||
### Successor Forums
|
||||
|
||||
### Successor Forum: Fascist Forge
|
||||
[[Fascist Forge]] was launched in April 2018 according to Vice, which reported that the founder, using the name "Mathias," wrote shortly after launch that the site aimed to fill the void left by the takedown of Iron March and to "continue where they left off."[^40] The [[Anti-Defamation League]] dates the launch to May 2018, and describes the forum as modeled on Iron March. Quoting the founder, the ADL reports that his "only desire for this site is to remain faithful to the message and worldview laid out by Slavros/Ironmarch."[^41] Vice reported on February 15, 2019 that the site's registrar had placed it in "clientHold" status on February 12, which prevents the domain from resolving, and a DreamHost spokesperson, Brett Dunst, confirmed that DreamHost had placed that status but said it could not comment on why.[^40]
|
||||
|
||||
In April 2018, approximately six months after Iron March's closure, a user operating under the name "Mathias" launched [[Fascist Forge]], explicitly described in a founding note as a replacement for Iron March intended to "continue where they left off." Fascist Forge replicated Iron March's vetting process, requiring prospective members to submit ideological essays before gaining full access. By February 2020 the forum had more than 1,500 registered users. Fascist Forge's hosting registrar took the site offline in February 2020. No strong successor consolidation forum emerged immediately, though the network's activity dispersed into encrypted messaging applications and alternative platforms.[^20]
|
||||
Fascist Forge separated itself from other sites with a mandatory entrance exam in which new recruits were pressured into writing 26 essay questions drawing on radicalization texts by the founder of the [[American Nazi Party]] and others.[^40] The BBC Russian Service reported that Fascist Forge had a section devoted to Slavros.[^4] The Combating Terrorism Center reports that after Iron March went offline the network's online propaganda infrastructure migrated to Telegram.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: CTC West Point. "The Iron March Forum and the Evolution of the 'Skull Mask' Neo-Fascist Network." https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-iron-march-forum-and-the-evolution-of-the-skull-mask-neo-fascist-network/
|
||||
[^2]: Meduza. "How a Moscow man from an Uzbek family started the world's biggest neo-Nazi forum." February 4, 2020. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/02/04/how-a-moscow-man-from-an-uzbek-family-started-the-world-s-biggest-neo-nazi-forum
|
||||
[^3]: CTC West Point. "The Iron March Forum and the Evolution of the 'Skull Mask' Neo-Fascist Network." https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-iron-march-forum-and-the-evolution-of-the-skull-mask-neo-fascist-network/
|
||||
[^4]: Iron March Dossiers. "John Cartwright II, aka Blood and Iron, Moderator of Neo-Nazi Forum Iron March." March 13, 2020. https://ironmarch.noblogs.org/post/2020/03/13/john-cartwright-ii-moderator-of-neo-nazi-forum-iron-march/
|
||||
[^5]: SPLC. "Atomwaffen Division." Extremist Files. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/atomwaffen-division/
|
||||
[^6]: The White Rose Society. "Antipodean Resistance and the Lads Society." https://thewhiterosesociety.writeas.com/antipodean-resistance-and-the-lads-society; Times of Israel. "Antipodean Resistance: Australia's new Nazis." https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/antipodean-resistance-australias-new-nazis/
|
||||
[^7]: Bellingcat. "Massive White Supremacist Message Board Leak: How to Access and Interpret the Data." November 6, 2019. https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2019/11/06/massive-white-supremacist-message-board-leak-how-to-access-and-interpret-the-data/
|
||||
[^8]: Gizmodo. "Neo-Nazi Web Forum Iron March Has SQL Database Dumped on the Internet Archive." November 7, 2019. https://gizmodo.com/neo-nazi-web-forum-iron-march-has-sql-database-dumped-o-1839721580
|
||||
[^9]: MIT Media Lab. "Investigating the Iron March Forums with Computational Tools: Far-Right Forum Network and LDA Analysis." Project overview, October 2020 to June 2023. https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/investigating-the-iron-march-forums-with-computational-tools-far-right-forum-network-and-lda-analysis/overview/
|
||||
[^10]: Lawfare. "The Iron March Data Dump Provides a Window Into How White Supremacists Communicate and Recruit." https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/iron-march-data-dump-provides-window-how-white-supremacists-communicate-and-recruit; CTC West Point. "The Iron March Forum and the Evolution of the 'Skull Mask' Neo-Fascist Network." https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-iron-march-forum-and-the-evolution-of-the-skull-mask-neo-fascist-network/
|
||||
[^11]: Gizmodo. "Leak Exposes U.S. Navy Sailor as Once-Prolific Recruiter for Neo-Nazi Group." March 12, 2020. https://gizmodo.com/leak-exposes-u-s-navy-sailor-as-once-prolific-recruite-1841149776; Newsweek. "Navy Kicks Out Alleged Recruiter for Neo-Nazi Group Atomwaffen Division After Investigation." April 2020. https://www.newsweek.com/navy-kicks-out-alleged-recruiter-neo-nazi-group-atomwaffen-division-after-investigation-1498704
|
||||
[^12]: Vice. "ICE Detention Center Captain Was on a Neo-Nazi Website and Wanted to Start a White Nationalist Group." January 2020. https://www.vice.com/en/article/ice-detention-center-captain-was-on-a-neo-nazi-website-and-wanted-to-start-a-white-nationalist-group/; Vice. "ICE Detention Center Captain With Neo-Nazi Ties Was Just Placed on Leave." January 2020. https://www.vice.com/en/article/ice-detention-center-captain-with-neo-nazi-ties-was-just-placed-on-leave/
|
||||
[^13]: Iron March Dossiers. "Thomas Adam Guba: Samuel Shapiro, Naval Medical Logistics Command Employee and Fascist Iron March User." February 27, 2020. https://ironmarch.noblogs.org/post/2020/02/27/thomas-adam-guba-naval-medical-logistics-command-member-and-fascist-iron-march-user/
|
||||
[^14]: Iron March Dossiers. "Van Ramsey Laws-Spencer: Neo-Nazi Organizer on Iron March and Active Marine." March 4, 2020. https://ironmarch.noblogs.org/post/2020/03/04/van-ramsey-lawsspencer-neo-nazi-organizer-on-iron-march-and-active-marine/
|
||||
[^15]: CBC News. "Leak of thousands of posts from defunct neo-Nazi forum offers clues to identify Canadian members." November-December 2019. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/iron-march-message-board-canadian-forces-1.5353201
|
||||
[^16]: Baltic Word / LSM. "Latvian Senior National Alliance figure apologises." November 2019. https://eng.lsm.lv/article/politics/politics/senior-national-alliance-figure-apologises-for-cloud-of-far-right-messages.a338044/
|
||||
[^17]: ITV News. "Neo-Nazi police officer Ben Hannam guilty of belonging to terror group National Action." April 1, 2021. https://www.itv.com/news/2021-04-01/neo-nazi-police-officer-ben-hannam-guilty-of-belonging-to-terror-group-national-action
|
||||
[^18]: The Ferret. "Named: the Scots businessman linked to neo-Nazi groups." 2020. https://www.theferret.scot/neo-nazi-haggiss-iron-march/
|
||||
[^19]: Gizmodo. "Airbnb Bans Over 60 White Supremacists After Iron March Forum Database Leak." December 2019. https://gizmodo.com/airbnb-bans-over-60-white-supremacists-after-iron-march-1840420392
|
||||
[^20]: ADL. "Fascist Forge: A New Forum for Hate." https://www.adl.org/resources/article/fascist-forge-new-forum-hate; Vice. "Fascist Forge, the Online Neo-Nazi Recruitment Forum, Is Down." February 2020. https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/43zn8j/fascist-forge-the-online-neo-nazi-recruitment-forum-is-down
|
||||
[^1]: Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. "The Iron March Forum and the Evolution of the 'Skull Mask' Neo-Fascist Network." https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-iron-march-forum-and-the-evolution-of-the-skull-mask-neo-fascist-network/
|
||||
[^2]: Southern Poverty Law Center. "James Mason," Extremist Files. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/james-mason
|
||||
[^3]: Bellingcat. "Massive White Supremacist Message Board Leak: How to Access and Interpret the Data." November 6, 2019. https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2019/11/06/massive-white-supremacist-message-board-leak-how-to-access-and-interpret-the-data/
|
||||
[^4]: BBC News Russian Service. Andrei Soshnikov, "'Наполовину русский': история москвича Алишера Мухитдинова и его глобальной фашистской сети" (in Russian), January 30, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-51301305 Sole source for the details of Mukhitdinov's family, residence and contacts with the reporters; the relative's career is attributed there to two BBC sources with access to personal databases.
|
||||
[^5]: Meduza. "How a Moscow man from an Uzbek family started the world's biggest neo-Nazi forum." February 4, 2020. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/02/04/how-a-moscow-man-from-an-uzbek-family-started-the-world-s-biggest-neo-nazi-forum
|
||||
[^6]: Bellingcat. "Transnational White Terror: Exposing Atomwaffen And The Iron March Networks." December 19, 2019. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/12/19/transnational-white-terror-exposing-atomwaffen-and-the-iron-march-networks/
|
||||
[^7]: The Ferret. "Named: the Scots businessman linked to neo-Nazi groups." https://www.theferret.scot/neo-nazi-haggiss-iron-march/
|
||||
[^8]: LSM (Latvian Public Broadcasting). Report on the Iron March account "Latvian_Integralist." November 12, 2019. https://eng.lsm.lv/article/politics/politics/senior-national-alliance-figure-apologises-for-cloud-of-far-right-messages.a338044/
|
||||
[^9]: Iron March Dossiers. "John Cartwright II, aka Blood and Iron, Moderator of Neo-Nazi Forum Iron March." March 13, 2020. https://ironmarch.noblogs.org/post/2020/03/13/john-cartwright-ii-moderator-of-neo-nazi-forum-iron-march/ Sole source for the Navy membership and Skype participation.
|
||||
[^10]: George Washington University Program on Extremism. "Atomwaffen Division (AWD)." https://extremism.gwu.edu/node/5386
|
||||
[^11]: United States Department of Justice. "Neo-Nazi Leader Sentenced to Five Years in Federal Prison for Explosives Charges." Office of Public Affairs, January 9, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/neo-nazi-leader-sentenced-five-years-federal-prison-explosives-charges (archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/2018id_/https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/neo-nazi-leader-sentenced-five-years-federal-prison-explosives-charges)
|
||||
[^12]: Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center, reproducing the United States Department of Justice release "White Supremacist Leader Found Guilty of Conspiring to Destroy Regional Power Grid." https://mcac.maryland.gov/?p=7387 (original: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/white-supremacist-leader-found-guilty-conspiring-destroy-regional-power-grid)
|
||||
[^13]: United States Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. "Florida Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Conspiring to Destroy Baltimore Region Power Grid." August 7, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/florida-man-sentenced-20-years-conspiring-destroy-baltimore-region-power-grid
|
||||
[^14]: The Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2016, SI 2016/1238, made December 15, 2016. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/1238/made
|
||||
[^15]: Nathan, Julie. "Antipodean Resistance: The Rise and Goals of Australia's New Nazis." Executive Council of Australian Jewry. https://www.ecaj.org.au/julie-nathans-latest-on-antipodean-resistance-australias-new-nazis/
|
||||
[^16]: The White Rose Society. "Antipodean Resistance and the Lads Society." https://thewhiterosesociety.writeas.com/antipodean-resistance-and-the-lads-society
|
||||
[^17]: Gizmodo. Tom McKay, "Neo-Nazi Web Forum Iron March Has SQL Database Dumped on the Internet Archive." November 8, 2019. https://gizmodo.com/neo-nazi-web-forum-iron-march-has-sql-database-dumped-o-1839721580
|
||||
[^18]: Lawfare. "The Iron March Data Dump Provides a Window Into How White Supremacists Communicate and Recruit." https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/iron-march-data-dump-provides-window-how-white-supremacists-communicate-and-recruit
|
||||
[^19]: MIT Media Lab. "Investigating the Iron March Forums with Computational Tools: Far-Right Forum Network and LDA Analysis." Project overview, October 2020 to June 2023. https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/investigating-the-iron-march-forums-with-computational-tools-far-right-forum-network-and-lda-analysis/overview/
|
||||
[^20]: Gizmodo. "Leak Exposes U.S. Navy Sailor as Once-Prolific Recruiter for Neo-Nazi Group." March 12, 2020. https://gizmodo.com/leak-exposes-u-s-navy-sailor-as-once-prolific-recruite-1841149776
|
||||
[^21]: Military.com. "Navy Boots Sailor who Allegedly Served as Recruiter for Neo-Nazi Group." April 19, 2020. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/04/19/navy-boots-sailor-who-allegedly-served-recruiter-neo-nazi-group.html
|
||||
[^22]: Vice. "ICE Detention Center Captain Was on a Neo-Nazi Website and Wanted to Start a White Nationalist Group." January 6, 2020. https://www.vice.com/en/article/ice-detention-center-captain-was-on-a-neo-nazi-website-and-wanted-to-start-a-white-nationalist-group/
|
||||
[^23]: Vice. "ICE Detention Center Captain With Neo-Nazi Ties Was Just Placed on Leave." January 7, 2020. https://www.vice.com/en/article/ice-detention-center-captain-with-neo-nazi-ties-was-just-placed-on-leave/
|
||||
[^24]: Cortez Masto, Catherine, and Jacky Rosen. "Cortez Masto, Rosen Call for Investigation into Conditions at ICE Detention Center in Pahrump." Press release, January 10, 2020. https://www.cortezmasto.senate.gov/?p=41080
|
||||
[^25]: CBC News. "Navy investigating reservist who encouraged fellow members of neo-Nazi web forum to enlist." December 4, 2019. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/navy-reservist-iron-march-data-1.5382424
|
||||
[^26]: CBC News. "Leak of thousands of posts from defunct neo-Nazi forum offers clues to identify Canadian members." 2019. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/iron-march-message-board-canadian-forces-1.5353201
|
||||
[^27]: Scripps News (Newsy) with Bellingcat. "We found more active duty military in leaked neo-Nazi forum." https://www.scrippsnews.com/us-news/military/we-found-more-active-duty-military-in-leaked-neo-nazi-forum
|
||||
[^28]: Iron March Dossiers. "Thomas Adam Guba: Samuel Shapiro, Naval Medical Logistics Command Employee and Fascist Iron March User." February 27, 2020. https://ironmarch.noblogs.org/post/2020/02/27/thomas-adam-guba-naval-medical-logistics-command-member-and-fascist-iron-march-user/ Sole source for this identification.
|
||||
[^29]: Iron March Dossiers. "Van Ramsey Laws-Spencer: Neo-Nazi Organizer on Iron March and Active Marine." March 4, 2020. https://ironmarch.noblogs.org/post/2020/03/04/van-ramsey-lawsspencer-neo-nazi-organizer-on-iron-march-and-active-marine/ Sole source for this identification.
|
||||
[^30]: Reuters, "British police officer convicted of belonging to neo-Nazi group," published by Cyprus Mail, April 1, 2021. https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/04/01/british-police-officer-convicted-of-belonging-to-neo-nazi-group
|
||||
[^31]: Police Professional. "Neo-Nazi police officer jailed for four years." April 30, 2021. https://policeprofessional.com/?p=132121
|
||||
[^32]: Reuters, "UK ex-police officer jailed for belonging to neo-Nazi group," published by The Business Standard, April 30, 2021. https://www.tbsnews.net/node/239737
|
||||
[^33]: Gizmodo. "Airbnb Bans Over 60 White Supremacists After Iron March Forum Database Leak." December 13, 2019. https://gizmodo.com/airbnb-bans-over-60-white-supremacists-after-iron-march-1840420392
|
||||
[^34]: GOV.UK. "Government takes action to proscribe right-wing terrorist groups." February 24, 2020. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-takes-action-to-proscribe-right-wing-terrorist-groups
|
||||
[^35]: The Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2021, SI 2021/501, made April 22, 2021. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2021/501/made
|
||||
[^36]: Public Safety Canada. "Government of Canada lists 13 new groups as terrorist entities and completes review of seven others." February 3, 2021. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2021/02/government-of-canada-lists-13-new-groups-as-terrorist-entities-and-completes-review-of-seven-others.html
|
||||
[^37]: Australian Government, National Security. Register of listed terrorist organisations. https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/what-australia-is-doing/terrorist-organisations/listed-terrorist-organisations Retrieved October 7, 2026.
|
||||
[^38]: Australian Government, Minister for Home Affairs. "Eight terrorist organisations to be listed under the criminal code." Media release, February 17, 2022. https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/KarenAndrews/Pages/eight-terrorist-organisations-to-be-listed-under-the-criminal-code.aspx
|
||||
[^39]: United States Department of State. Foreign Terrorist Organizations list. https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/ Retrieved October 7, 2026.
|
||||
[^40]: Vice. "Fascist Forge, the Online Neo-Nazi Recruitment Forum, Is Down." February 15, 2019. https://www.vice.com/en/article/43zn8j/fascist-forge-the-online-neo-nazi-recruitment-forum-is-down
|
||||
[^41]: Anti-Defamation League. "Fascist Forge: A New Forum for Hate." https://www.adl.org/resources/article/fascist-forge-new-forum-hate
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ created: 2026-09-22
|
|||
updated: 2026-09-22
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
[[Anthropic]] announced the council on August 27, 2025, as "a group of leading bipartisan national security and public policy practitioners who will help Anthropic support the [[U.S. government]] and closely allied democracies in building and maintaining enduring technological advantages in an era of strategic competition," with the task of identifying "high-impact applications" in areas "ranging from cybersecurity to intelligence analysis to scientific research." Its inaugural members were:[^1]
|
||||
[[Anthropic]] announced the council on August 27, 2025, as "a group of leading bipartisan national security and public policy practitioners who will help Anthropic support the [[United States|U.S. government]] and closely allied democracies in building and maintaining enduring technological advantages in an era of strategic competition," with the task of identifying "high-impact applications" in areas "ranging from cybersecurity to intelligence analysis to scientific research." Its inaugural members were:[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
- [[Roy Blunt]], former senator from Missouri and member of the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]], director of Tenet Healthcare and of the cyber company Nightwing, and former chairman of the advisory board of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
|
||||
- [[David S. Cohen]], former deputy director of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -180,7 +180,7 @@ On June 6, 2025 a panel of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District
|
|||
[^15]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, Key findings, p. 7.
|
||||
[^16]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, Introduction, pp. 1, 4.
|
||||
[^17]: Robert Parry, "The Lost Opportunity of Iran-Contra," *Consortium News*, December 1, 2011, https://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/01/the-lost-opportunity-of-iran-contra/ ; Parry, "Regret over Gary Webb's Demise," *Consortium News*, June 1, 2013, https://consortiumnews.com/2013/06/01/regret-over-gary-webbs-demise/
|
||||
[^18]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), ch. 27 (citation carried from the existing vault page for the Associated Press; not reopened in this run).
|
||||
[^18]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), ch. 27.
|
||||
[^19]: "Bad Deal For Berrellez," *Phoenix Republic*, April 2, 1978, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030015-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp09t00207r001000030015-6
|
||||
[^20]: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "Justice Department defends decisions in secret seizure of AP phone records as criticism mounts," May 14, 2013, https://www.rcfp.org/justice-department-defends-decisions-secret-seizure-ap-phone-records/ (describing the Machen letter of May 10, 2013 and quoting Pruitt's letter of May 13).
|
||||
[^21]: James M. Cole, Deputy Attorney General, letter to Gary B. Pruitt, May 14, 2013, https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/oip/legacy/2014/07/23/dag-letter-to-ap-president-pruitt.pdf
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ Under a Corporate Conversion Agreement dated November 15, 2022, BGC Partners and
|
|||
|
||||
### Leadership Change and the Lutnick Divestiture
|
||||
|
||||
Howard Lutnick, BGC's chief executive officer and chairman since 1999, was confirmed by the [[United States Senate]] as [[United States Department of Commerce|Secretary of Commerce]] on February 18, 2025, and stepped down that day. The board appointed [[John Abularrage]], [[JP Aubin]] and [[Sean Windeatt]] co-chief executive officers, appointed [[Brandon Lutnick]] to the board, and named [[Stephen Merkel]], the company's chief legal officer, to the board and as chairman. On May 19, 2025 BGC announced the repurchase of 16,452,850 Class A shares from Lutnick at $9.2082 per share, an aggregate of $151,501,133, "in furtherance of Mr. Lutnick's [[U.S. government]] ethics agreement." On October 6, 2025 Lutnick completed the divestiture of his holdings in BGC, Cantor and CFGM, selling the voting shares of CFGM to trusts controlled by Brandon Lutnick, who as of February 27, 2026 beneficially owned 2.0 million Class A and 109.4 million Class B shares, "collectively representing 75.1% of the total voting power."[^1][^8]
|
||||
Howard Lutnick, BGC's chief executive officer and chairman since 1999, was confirmed by the [[United States Senate]] as [[United States Department of Commerce|Secretary of Commerce]] on February 18, 2025, and stepped down that day. The board appointed [[John Abularrage]], [[JP Aubin]] and [[Sean Windeatt]] co-chief executive officers, appointed [[Brandon Lutnick]] to the board, and named [[Stephen Merkel]], the company's chief legal officer, to the board and as chairman. On May 19, 2025 BGC announced the repurchase of 16,452,850 Class A shares from Lutnick at $9.2082 per share, an aggregate of $151,501,133, "in furtherance of Mr. Lutnick's [[United States|U.S. government]] ethics agreement." On October 6, 2025 Lutnick completed the divestiture of his holdings in BGC, Cantor and CFGM, selling the voting shares of CFGM to trusts controlled by Brandon Lutnick, who as of February 27, 2026 beneficially owned 2.0 million Class A and 109.4 million Class B shares, "collectively representing 75.1% of the total voting power."[^1][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The September 2019 CFTC Orders (Release 8035-19)
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ Basterfield wrote on June 28, 2025, citing page 3 of the Ten Month Report, that
|
|||
|
||||
Basterfield wrote on July 7, 2025, quoting the Ten Month Report, that its description of Project Campus gives the objective as "to stimulate, motivate and encourage the senior levels of the academic community within the [[United States]] to involve themselves in study and research of very advanced aerial spacecraft that is presently considered phenomenological." As a "test case" BAASS approached senior management at the [[University of Nevada, Las Vegas]], which "responded positively"; BAASS proposed ten scenarios, including announcements by the [[United States Air Force]] or other officials that unidentified aerial phenomena were real and extraterrestrial, for the university to study with regard to "the media, economy, department of defense, political groups, science, the general public, religion, public health and academia." The report states: "Dr. Smith and four others have expressed strong interest in submitting a specific proposal to BAASS by August 2009."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
According to Basterfield's quotation, BAASS also sought proposals from [[Battelle Memorial Institute]], Southwestern Research Institute, the [[Center for American Progress]] and [[Sandia National Laboratories]] for a study budgeted at 400,000 dollars. The request for proposals states: "For the purpose of the proposed study we take the presence of such advanced exotic aerospace craft as a given." It asks whether "by 2050 there will be confirmation to the public by the [[U.S. government]] and its military authorities" of craft "beyond those of our own most advanced military craft," what format such a confirmation should take and what its effects would be on the military and "the U.S. body politic in the areas of commerce, religion, academia and so forth," and what steps could be taken to "soften the societal blow." As of the report date: "BAASS has not received a reply from CAP or SWRI regarding the RFP. Sandia National Laboratories volunteered that they did not have the expertise for the project and Battelle Memorial Institute declined the RFP."[^4]
|
||||
According to Basterfield's quotation, BAASS also sought proposals from [[Battelle Memorial Institute]], Southwestern Research Institute, the [[Center for American Progress]] and [[Sandia National Laboratories]] for a study budgeted at 400,000 dollars. The request for proposals states: "For the purpose of the proposed study we take the presence of such advanced exotic aerospace craft as a given." It asks whether "by 2050 there will be confirmation to the public by the U.S. government and its military authorities" of craft "beyond those of our own most advanced military craft," what format such a confirmation should take and what its effects would be on the military and "the U.S. body politic in the areas of commerce, religion, academia and so forth," and what steps could be taken to "soften the societal blow." As of the report date: "BAASS has not received a reply from CAP or SWRI regarding the RFP. Sandia National Laboratories volunteered that they did not have the expertise for the project and Battelle Memorial Institute declined the RFP."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Medical Effects Research
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -165,7 +165,7 @@ The SEC announced on April 6, 2020 that Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. had agreed to pa
|
|||
|
||||
### Government and Political Connections
|
||||
|
||||
An invitation sent on November 3, 2015 from the account "Lutnick, Howard" and forwarded to Epstein by his assistant [[Lesley Groff]] announced an event with [[Hillary Clinton]] at the Cantor Fitzgerald offices on November 11 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., described as "a very intimate fundraising event," with a [[Hillary for America]] contribution form attached (EFTA02671545). At his May 6, 2026 House Oversight interview Lutnick said that emails addressed to "Howard Lutnick" or "Lutnick, Howard" "went to [[Matthew Gilbert]]. They did not go to me," and that "You would know if they went to me if they are listed as 'HWL.'"[^38][^15] Lutnick was confirmed as Secretary of Commerce on February 18, 2025, and stepped down that day as chairman and chief executive of BGC; Brandon Lutnick was appointed chief executive officer and chairman of Cantor and chief executive officer of CFGM, and [[Kyle Lutnick]] executive vice chairman of Cantor and president of CFGM.[^2][^3] On May 19, 2025 BGC announced it would repurchase 16,452,850 shares from Lutnick for $151,501,133 "in furtherance of Mr. Lutnick's [[U.S. government]] ethics agreement," and that Lutnick would transfer his ownership interest in Cantor to trusts for the benefit of Brandon, Kyle and his other adult children, with Brandon as controlling trustee. The divestiture of holdings in BGC, Cantor and CFGM was completed on October 6, 2025, including the sale of all voting shares of CFGM to trusts controlled by Brandon Lutnick, who beneficially owned 2.0 million BGC Class A and 109.4 million Class B shares, 75.2 percent of BGC's total voting power, as of the date of BGC's annual report for 2025.[^2][^3][^39] The 2012 and later documents on Lutnick's relationship with Epstein are at Howard Lutnick; the 2020 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] complaint concerning Lutnick, BGC and Cantor is at BGC Group.
|
||||
An invitation sent on November 3, 2015 from the account "Lutnick, Howard" and forwarded to Epstein by his assistant [[Lesley Groff]] announced an event with [[Hillary Clinton]] at the Cantor Fitzgerald offices on November 11 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., described as "a very intimate fundraising event," with a [[Hillary for America]] contribution form attached (EFTA02671545). At his May 6, 2026 House Oversight interview Lutnick said that emails addressed to "Howard Lutnick" or "Lutnick, Howard" "went to [[Matthew Gilbert]]. They did not go to me," and that "You would know if they went to me if they are listed as 'HWL.'"[^38][^15] Lutnick was confirmed as Secretary of Commerce on February 18, 2025, and stepped down that day as chairman and chief executive of BGC; Brandon Lutnick was appointed chief executive officer and chairman of Cantor and chief executive officer of CFGM, and [[Kyle Lutnick]] executive vice chairman of Cantor and president of CFGM.[^2][^3] On May 19, 2025 BGC announced it would repurchase 16,452,850 shares from Lutnick for $151,501,133 "in furtherance of Mr. Lutnick's U.S. government ethics agreement," and that Lutnick would transfer his ownership interest in Cantor to trusts for the benefit of Brandon, Kyle and his other adult children, with Brandon as controlling trustee. The divestiture of holdings in BGC, Cantor and CFGM was completed on October 6, 2025, including the sale of all voting shares of CFGM to trusts controlled by Brandon Lutnick, who beneficially owned 2.0 million BGC Class A and 109.4 million Class B shares, 75.2 percent of BGC's total voting power, as of the date of BGC's annual report for 2025.[^2][^3][^39] The 2012 and later documents on Lutnick's relationship with Epstein are at Howard Lutnick; the 2020 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] complaint concerning Lutnick, BGC and Cantor is at BGC Group.
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ The consortium is an other-transaction arrangement between the Army Contracting
|
|||
|
||||
### FCC experimental licence WK2XCW
|
||||
|
||||
The FCC Experimental Licensing System lists call sign WK2XCW (station class MO, radar) in Dynetics' name. A modification filed February 3, 2022 (file 0025-EX-CM-2022) lists nine sites: Huntsville, [[Yuma Proving Ground]], [[White Sands Missile Range]], [[Dugway Proving Ground]], two at [[Eglin Air Force Base]], [[Joint Base San Antonio]]-Randolph, Redstone Arsenal and [[Joint Base Andrews]], with 9.2 to 9.9 GHz, 19.2 W mean and 7.6 kW peak power and emission designator 100MQ3N; it carries "[[U.S. government]] contract: Yes" and no Sierra Blanca location.[^14]
|
||||
The FCC Experimental Licensing System lists call sign WK2XCW (station class MO, radar) in Dynetics' name. A modification filed February 3, 2022 (file 0025-EX-CM-2022) lists nine sites: Huntsville, [[Yuma Proving Ground]], [[White Sands Missile Range]], [[Dugway Proving Ground]], two at [[Eglin Air Force Base]], [[Joint Base San Antonio]]-Randolph, Redstone Arsenal and [[Joint Base Andrews]], with 9.2 to 9.9 GHz, 19.2 W mean and 7.6 kW peak power and emission designator 100MQ3N; it carries "[[United States|U.S. government]] contract: Yes" and no Sierra Blanca location.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
Later filings list a Sierra Blanca, Texas entry ("Ground Temp Fixed and Mobile, Sierra Blanca, TX," [[Hudspeth County, Texas]], 31 20 05 N, 105 30 16 W, 10 km radius). The filings are file 0012-EX-CM-2023 (filed January 16, 2023), 0148-EX-CM-2023 (May 5, 2023), 0007-EX-CM-2024 (January 10, 2024; adds "Ground Temporary Fixed and Mobile - Albuquerque, NM," within 10 km of 34-58-01 N, 106-26-44 W), 0127-EX-CR-2024 (February 15, 2024), 0161-EX-CM-2025 (July 30, 2025) and 0179-EX-CR-2026 (February 24, 2026). The exhibit to the February 2024 renewal (0127-EX-CR-2024), titled "Contract and Stop Buzzer Update Notification," states that the license file "should be updated to reflect support for the contract set forth below - which replaces the previously specified contract (DARPA No. HR0011-17-9-0017): New Contract: Agency/Customer: AvMC Contract No.: AMTC 20-01-017." The exhibit to the July 2025 modification states: "The contract below replaces the previously specified contract (DARPA No. HR0011-17-9-0017): New Contract: Agency/Customer: AvMC Contract No.: AMTC 20-01-017." The 2026 renewal's Exhibit 1 states "No Updates to Supported Contract Information: Agency/Customer: AvMC Contract No.: AMTC 20-01-017." Other licensees filing for Sierra Blanca locations in the same period are listed on [[Sierra Blanca, Texas]].[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ The acknowledgments of "ISIS in America" name the Program's research associates
|
|||
|
||||
### Court-record research
|
||||
|
||||
The Program's report of March 2021 on the [[January 6, 2021 Capitol breach|January 6 attack]], "This is Our House!", was written by Vidino, Hughes, [[Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens]], [[Devorah Margolin]], [[Bennett Clifford]], [[Jon Lewis]], [[Andrew Mines]] and [[Haroro Ingram]]. It counted 257 individuals charged in federal court as of February 25, 2021, identified 33 with military backgrounds, and stated that its data came from hundreds of court documents, Department of Justice press releases, [[Freedom of Information Act]] requests, interviews with [[U.S. government]] officials and news articles. The report stated that the Program had hosted an annual talk by the Domestic Terrorism Counsel since 2015.[^5]
|
||||
The Program's report of March 2021 on the [[January 6, 2021 Capitol breach|January 6 attack]], "This is Our House!", was written by Vidino, Hughes, [[Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens]], [[Devorah Margolin]], [[Bennett Clifford]], [[Jon Lewis]], [[Andrew Mines]] and [[Haroro Ingram]]. It counted 257 individuals charged in federal court as of February 25, 2021, identified 33 with military backgrounds, and stated that its data came from hundreds of court documents, Department of Justice press releases, [[Freedom of Information Act]] requests, interviews with [[United States|U.S. government]] officials and news articles. The report stated that the Program had hosted an annual talk by the Domestic Terrorism Counsel since 2015.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
On December 18, 2025 the Program held an online panel, "Holding 764 Accountable," moderated by its senior research fellow [[Barry Jonas]], with [[Justin Sher]] of the [[Counterterrorism Section]] and [[Steve Grocki]], chief of the [[Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section]], both of the Department of Justice, [[Kavitha Babu]] of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois, and [[James Kitchen]] of [[Jones Day]].[^6] Earlier that month [[Luke Baumgartner]] and Barry Jonas wrote in [[Just Security]] that by charging a member of [[764 Network]] under [[18 U.S.C. § 2339A]], the Department of Justice "has signaled that NVE networks like 764 are terrorist enterprises."[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ Skywatcher (also written Sky Watcher) is a private group that described itself a
|
|||
|
||||
### Formation and founders
|
||||
|
||||
NewsNation described Barber as the founder of Skywatcher and reported on January 16, 2025 that his "Skywatcher Team" had deployed "on behalf of the [[U.S. government]]" to investigate the [[2024 New Jersey drone sightings|2024 East Coast drone sightings]], and that in August 2024 the team had conducted "their own operation, with a psionic asset, to see if they could summon a UAP themselves."[^1] A later NewsNation column by [[Ross Coulthart|Coulthart]] gave the founders as "Jake Barber, James Fowler and financier Alex Klokus."[^4] The writer Jimmy of the [[UAP Files]] newsletter stated in August 2026 that the Skywatcher [[YouTube]] account was created on January 18, 2025, six days before Barber's January 24, 2025 appearance on Coulthart's "[[Reality Check (NewsNation)|Reality Check]]," and that Klokus "personally registered the skywatcher.ai domain in his name in December 2024."[^5] [[Jason Colavito]]'s blog wrote on January 19, 2025 that [[Steven Greenstreet]] had reported that Barber "launched his own UFO organization, Skywatcher, in November, and its website is owned by Alex Klokus, the co-founder of the [[SALT (conference)|SALT]] conference, where UFO figures frequently speak to tech and financial elites."[^6]
|
||||
NewsNation described Barber as the founder of Skywatcher and reported on January 16, 2025 that his "Skywatcher Team" had deployed "on behalf of the [[United States|U.S. government]]" to investigate the [[2024 New Jersey drone sightings|2024 East Coast drone sightings]], and that in August 2024 the team had conducted "their own operation, with a psionic asset, to see if they could summon a UAP themselves."[^1] A later NewsNation column by [[Ross Coulthart|Coulthart]] gave the founders as "Jake Barber, James Fowler and financier Alex Klokus."[^4] The writer Jimmy of the [[UAP Files]] newsletter stated in August 2026 that the Skywatcher [[YouTube]] account was created on January 18, 2025, six days before Barber's January 24, 2025 appearance on Coulthart's "[[Reality Check (NewsNation)|Reality Check]]," and that Klokus "personally registered the skywatcher.ai domain in his name in December 2024."[^5] [[Jason Colavito]]'s blog wrote on January 19, 2025 that [[Steven Greenstreet]] had reported that Barber "launched his own UFO organization, Skywatcher, in November, and its website is owned by Alex Klokus, the co-founder of the [[SALT (conference)|SALT]] conference, where UFO figures frequently speak to tech and financial elites."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The website's FAQ states that Skywatcher "is funded through private partnerships and professional consulting engagements," and, in answer to the question whether it is "a direct extension, surrogate for, or acting as a public messaging conduit for the US Government or any element of the US Intelligence Community," answers "No. Skywatcher is an independent and private entity." It also states that it does not "currently claim possession" of recovered materials, although it is "actively engaged in the public recovery and analysis of exotic aerospace materials."[^7] It lists 20 or more experts and "400+ years of combined" experience, and describes its approach as bridging "Special Operations, Advanced Sensing, & Non-Traditional Air Defense Techniques."[^7] Its research page lists a "Skywatcher Discovery Framework," described as "our proposed model for responsible UAP engagement, civilian access to data, and long-term transparency."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ No Form D filing by an issuer named Skywatcher was found in a full-text search o
|
|||
|
||||
### Trademark ownership
|
||||
|
||||
The SKYWATCHER service mark application (serial 98864113, Class 35 "Business management," intent to use, standard characters, filed November 20, 2024) names as owner [[ENNEA LLC]], "a limited liability company organized in Delaware," at the VCORP address in [[Wilmington, Delaware]]. The same owner holds applications for ENNEA (serial 98873547, filed November 26, 2024) and PSIONIC (serial 99091501, filed March 19, 2025). Every filing in the public [[United States Patent and Trademark Office]] file for SKYWATCHER (the application of November 20, 2024, an extension request of February 11, 2026 and a petition to revive of September 14, 2026) is signed "/[[Robert Drolet]]/," attorney of record, of [[Fort Lauderdale]]; no owner-signed declaration, specimen or owner email appears in the public copy. The owner telephone on the filings is the number printed on the 2016 Form D of Futurism, LLC (signed by Alex Klokus as chief executive officer) and on the March 30, 2026 Form ADV of [[SALT Fund Management LLC|SALT Fund Management, LLC]].[^16]
|
||||
The SKYWATCHER service mark application (serial 98864113, Class 35 "Business management," intent to use, standard characters, filed November 20, 2024) names as owner [[ENNEA LLC]], "a limited liability company organized in Delaware," at the VCORP address in Wilmington, Delaware. The same owner holds applications for ENNEA (serial 98873547, filed November 26, 2024) and PSIONIC (serial 99091501, filed March 19, 2025). Every filing in the public [[United States Patent and Trademark Office]] file for SKYWATCHER (the application of November 20, 2024, an extension request of February 11, 2026 and a petition to revive of September 14, 2026) is signed "/[[Robert Drolet]]/," attorney of record, of [[Fort Lauderdale]]; no owner-signed declaration, specimen or owner email appears in the public copy. The owner telephone on the filings is the number printed on the 2016 Form D of Futurism, LLC (signed by Alex Klokus as chief executive officer) and on the March 30, 2026 Form ADV of [[SALT Fund Management LLC|SALT Fund Management, LLC]].[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
ENNEA LLC is registered in Florida (document M25000008651, filed June 16, 2025) with "ALEX KLOKUS" as sole listed person, titled Member on the application, "CEO" on the annual report of April 17, 2026 and "Authorized Signer" on the amended report of July 15, 2026. The co-existence agreement it signed with Waterkress Creative LLC, effective November 19, 2025 and filed with the USPTO on December 7, 2025, carries the typed signature "Alex Klokus," title "ENNEA LLC Authorized Representative," and an Acrobat Sign audit entry "Signer alex@ennea.io entered name at signing as Alex Klokus," November 25, 2025.[^17] The Delaware certificate attached to the Florida application states that ENNEA LLC "was formed on the first day of January, A.D. 2024" and gives the file number 2861775.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ The domain skywatcher.ai was registered December 6, 2024; its public registratio
|
|||
|
||||
- January 5, 2024: ennea.io registered; ENNEA LLC's Delaware certificate gives its formation as January 1, 2024.[^17][^19]
|
||||
- May 22 and August 9, 2024: ennea.io captures read "The central node for capital, research, and relationships fueling contrarian ideas."[^19]
|
||||
- October 14 to 18, 2024: the "Explorer's Club by Ennea" gathering at the [[Esalen Institute]], announced as "patron-funded, invite-only"; no organizer is named on the captured pages.[^19]
|
||||
- October 14 to 18, 2024: the "Explorer's Club by Ennea" gathering at the Esalen Institute, announced as "patron-funded, invite-only"; no organizer is named on the captured pages.[^19]
|
||||
- November 20, 2024: SKYWATCHER application filed in ENNEA LLC's name.[^16]
|
||||
- November 27, 2024: Skywatcher Technologies Corporation incorporated in Delaware.[^10]
|
||||
- December 6, 2024: skywatcher.ai registered to "Skywatcher Technologies."[^18]
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ A California business-registry entry last updated September 1, 2023 lists the co
|
|||
|
||||
The [[Internal Revenue Service]] Exempt Organizations Business Master File lists the organization under EIN 93-3649160 as a 501(c)(3) with a ruling date of June 2024, in care of "Attn Nolan" at 5 Hermosa Road, [[Redwood City]], California 94062.[^6] The Form 990 for 2024 gives the Auburn address, a telephone number in the 408 area code, a year of formation of 2023 and California as the state of legal domicile.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The résumé that Grusch submitted to the House Committee on Oversight for its July 26, 2023 hearing lists, under "May 2023-Present," the position "Chief Operating Officer (COO), The Sol Foundation," and describes the employer as a "501c3 federally recognized non-profit," followed by the text "The premier center for research in the natural and social sciences, engineering, and the humanities, but also extends activities to advisory and policy work for the [[U.S. government]]/public outreach."[^3] The IRS ruling date on record for EIN 93-3649160 is June 2024.[^6] Nolan said in September 2023 that Grusch's title had since changed to senior founding advisor, that the earlier title "seemed the right thing at the time," and that Grusch was "a founder of the Sol Foundation."[^2]
|
||||
The résumé that Grusch submitted to the House Committee on Oversight for its July 26, 2023 hearing lists, under "May 2023-Present," the position "Chief Operating Officer (COO), The Sol Foundation," and describes the employer as a "501c3 federally recognized non-profit," followed by the text "The premier center for research in the natural and social sciences, engineering, and the humanities, but also extends activities to advisory and policy work for the [[United States|U.S. government]]/public outreach."[^3] The IRS ruling date on record for EIN 93-3649160 is June 2024.[^6] Nolan said in September 2023 that Grusch's title had since changed to senior founding advisor, that the earlier title "seemed the right thing at the time," and that Grusch was "a founder of the Sol Foundation."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The Form CT-1 registration of the California corporation with the California Attorney General's Registry of Charitable Trusts, stamped received May 2, 2024, lists Nolan as chair and director, Skafish as secretary and director and Berte as treasurer and director, gives January 22, 2024 as the date assets were first received, and answers "No" to line 3, which asks whether the organization "is under common control, does it have a close connection with, or is it related to, any other nonprofit or for-profit organization or trust." The Internal Revenue Service determination letter dated June 27, 2024, filed with the registry, gives an effective date of July 7, 2023.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -129,7 +129,7 @@ The Form 990 for the calendar year 2024 lists four people in Part VII: Garry Nol
|
|||
|
||||
Press statements used other titles. Nolan was "Executive Director of the Board" and Skafish "Director of Research" in September 2023, and Skafish was "executive director" in December 2024.[^2][^22] Nolan said in 2023 that his Stanford appointment did not allow him to hold an officer role in an outside company and that he took no salary.[^2] [[Diana Walsh Pasulka]] posted on September 11, 2023 that she was joining the board, and the foundation named [[I. Charles McCullough III]], a former [[Inspector General of the Intelligence Community]], as its legal counsel.[^2] McCullough signed the November 12, 2024 letter to Congress on the review-board provisions of the [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act]] under the heading "Former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community," as did Nolan, Skafish, Pasulka and Gallaudet.[^23] McCullough is also counsel to Grusch, whom he represented in a May 2022 urgent-concern complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
Berte founded the machine-vision company [[Robovision]], which was reported in March 2023 to be assisting Stanford with artificial-intelligence applications for the study of complex diseases.[^2] Mindrila hosted the 2024 symposium as Director of Strategy.[^22] Part IV of the 2024 Form 990 answers yes to maintaining an office, employees or agents outside the [[United States]].[^7]
|
||||
Berte founded the machine-vision company [[Robovision]], which was reported in March 2023 to be assisting Stanford with artificial-intelligence applications for the study of complex diseases.[^2] Mindrila hosted the 2024 symposium as Director of Strategy.[^22] Part IV of the 2024 Form 990 answers yes to maintaining an office, employees or agents outside the United States.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Website roster
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -60,11 +60,11 @@ updated: 2026-10-04
|
|||
|
||||
Tom DeLonge founded TTSA in 2017 with the goal of bringing the UAP conversation out of the shadows and into the mainstream. He assembled a team of former high-ranking government officials and scientists to lead the organization, including [[Luis Elizondo]], [[Christopher Mellon]], [[Jim Semivan]], and [[Hal Puthoff]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The company was structured with three divisions: Science, Aerospace, and Entertainment. The plan was to use the entertainment division to generate revenue that would fund the scientific and aerospace research. TTSA released three Navy videos, "FLIR" ([[Tic Tac]]), "[[GIMBAL]]," and "GoFast," on its [[YouTube]] page. The 2017 [[New York Times]] article that revealed the existence of [[AATIP]] carried two of them (FLIR1 and GIMBAL), and GOFAST followed in March 2018.[^1][^2] [[The Black Vault]] describes the videos as "subsequently released by To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, the source of where the New York Times originally received them." [[Pentagon]] spokesperson [[Christopher Sherwood]] told *[[The Intercept]]* in 2019 that the videos were released "for research purposes ... and not for general public release," and the [[Department of Defense]] stated on April 27, 2020 that it "authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos," which had been "circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017." [[Politico]] reported in 2021 that the [[Washington Headquarters Services]] declassification division had approved the videos "for unlimited distribution" inside the government before the Times placement. The Office of the Secretary of Defense file released to [[The Black Vault]] under the [[Freedom of Information Act]] in August 2019 contains an August 23, 2017 email in which [[Luis Elizondo]] asked Michael Russo of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review to "consider our request for unrestricted release"; an August 24, 2017 reply from Russo that if the service-level classification authority verified that removing the metadata made the videos unclassified, "please feel free to move forward with release"; and a DD Form 1910 whose publication-data block reads "Not Applicable. Not for publication. Research and analysis ONLY and info sharing with other USG and industry partners for the purposes of developing a database to help identify, analyze and ultimately defeat UAS threats." Joseph Gradisher, a Navy spokesman, said in 2019 that neither the cognizant Navy offices nor the review office had a record of correspondence responding to a request for unrestricted release of the videos in 2017.[^3] Mellon said in 2020 that he received the videos in the Pentagon parking lot from a Defense Department official.[^4][^5][^2]
|
||||
The company was structured with three divisions: Science, Aerospace, and Entertainment. The plan was to use the entertainment division to generate revenue that would fund the scientific and aerospace research. TTSA released three Navy videos, "FLIR" ([[Tic Tac]]), "[[GIMBAL]]," and "GoFast," on its [[YouTube]] page. The 2017 [[New York Times]] article that revealed the existence of [[AATIP]] carried two of them (FLIR1 and GIMBAL), and GOFAST followed in March 2018.[^1][^2] [[The Black Vault]] describes the videos as "subsequently released by To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, the source of where the New York Times originally received them." [[Pentagon]] spokesperson [[Christopher Sherwood]] told *[[The Intercept]]* in 2019 that the videos were released "for research purposes ... and not for general public release," and the [[Department of Defense]] stated on April 27, 2020 that it "authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos," which had been "circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017." [[Politico]] reported in 2021 that the [[Washington Headquarters Services]] declassification division had approved the videos "for unlimited distribution" inside the government before the Times placement. The Office of the Secretary of Defense file released to The Black Vault under the [[Freedom of Information Act]] in August 2019 contains an August 23, 2017 email in which Luis Elizondo asked Michael Russo of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review to "consider our request for unrestricted release"; an August 24, 2017 reply from Russo that if the service-level classification authority verified that removing the metadata made the videos unclassified, "please feel free to move forward with release"; and a DD Form 1910 whose publication-data block reads "Not Applicable. Not for publication. Research and analysis ONLY and info sharing with other USG and industry partners for the purposes of developing a database to help identify, analyze and ultimately defeat UAS threats." Joseph Gradisher, a Navy spokesman, said in 2019 that neither the cognizant Navy offices nor the review office had a record of correspondence responding to a request for unrestricted release of the videos in 2017.[^3] Mellon said in 2020 that he received the videos in the Pentagon parking lot from a Defense Department official.[^4][^5][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Role in UAP Disclosure
|
||||
|
||||
TTSA played a significant role in the early stages of the modern UAP disclosure movement. The organization provided a platform for Luis Elizondo to speak publicly about his work with [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program|AATIP]] after he resigned from the [[Pentagon]]. The company also produced the television show "[[Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation]]" on the [[History Channel]], which featured Elizondo and other former government officials investigating UAP cases.[^1]
|
||||
TTSA played a significant role in the early stages of the modern UAP disclosure movement. The organization provided a platform for Luis Elizondo to speak publicly about his work with [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program|AATIP]] after he resigned from the Pentagon. The company also produced the television show "[[Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation]]" on the [[History Channel]], which featured Elizondo and other former government officials investigating UAP cases.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
While the organization was ultimately not financially successful and many of its key members, including Elizondo, Mellon, and Puthoff, eventually moved on, TTSA was instrumental in raising the public profile of the UAP issue and helping to break the long-standing stigma surrounding the topic.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ The report's related-party note states that "monies due to Mr. DeLonge under rel
|
|||
|
||||
### Launch and the December 2017 placement
|
||||
|
||||
At a launch event in October 2017 (reported as October 11, 2017, [[Seattle]]), Tom DeLonge invited Luis Elizondo onstage; Elizondo said the group was "planning to provide never-before-released footage from real [[U.S. government]] systems." [[Gideon Lewis-Kraus]] reported that on October 4, 2017, a week before, Christopher Mellon had arranged for the journalist [[Leslie Kean]] to meet Hal Puthoff, Jim Semivan and Elizondo at a hotel bar near the Pentagon, where she was told she could have the videos with chain-of-custody documentation "if she could place a story in the Times." [[Bryan Bender]] wrote in 2021 that Mellon, "by then also a paid adviser to DeLonge's TTSA," served as Elizondo's "unofficial public relations manager" and "started dangling the story to the New York Times, POLITICO and several other mainstream outlets."[^16][^5] Bender also wrote that DeLonge, in 2016, "reached out to Christopher Mellon" and that in the same year "one of DeLonge's cold calls unearthed the name" of Elizondo.[^5] The Times and Politico published on December 16, 2017; see [[December 2017 New York Times AATIP Report]]. Politico's article of that date described the company as "a for-profit company" co-founded by DeLonge, quoted DeLonge's video calling it a "public benefit corporation," reported that its website "claims 2,142 investors, who have purchased slightly more than $2 million worth of shares" with "a minimum purchase of $200 in common stock shares," and placed Mellon at "a recent press conference for To The Stars in [[Las Vegas]]" describing a Navy pilots' sighting; Elizondo was listed as "director of global security and special programs."[^17]
|
||||
At a launch event in October 2017 (reported as October 11, 2017, [[Seattle]]), Tom DeLonge invited Luis Elizondo onstage; Elizondo said the group was "planning to provide never-before-released footage from real [[United States|U.S. government]] systems." [[Gideon Lewis-Kraus]] reported that on October 4, 2017, a week before, Christopher Mellon had arranged for the journalist [[Leslie Kean]] to meet Hal Puthoff, Jim Semivan and Elizondo at a hotel bar near the Pentagon, where she was told she could have the videos with chain-of-custody documentation "if she could place a story in the Times." [[Bryan Bender]] wrote in 2021 that Mellon, "by then also a paid adviser to DeLonge's TTSA," served as Elizondo's "unofficial public relations manager" and "started dangling the story to the New York Times, POLITICO and several other mainstream outlets."[^16][^5] Bender also wrote that DeLonge, in 2016, "reached out to Christopher Mellon" and that in the same year "one of DeLonge's cold calls unearthed the name" of Elizondo.[^5] The Times and Politico published on December 16, 2017; see [[December 2017 New York Times AATIP Report]]. Politico's article of that date described the company as "a for-profit company" co-founded by DeLonge, quoted DeLonge's video calling it a "public benefit corporation," reported that its website "claims 2,142 investors, who have purchased slightly more than $2 million worth of shares" with "a minimum purchase of $200 in common stock shares," and placed Mellon at "a recent press conference for To The Stars in [[Las Vegas]]" describing a Navy pilots' sighting; Elizondo was listed as "director of global security and special programs."[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
Mellon told the Politico writer: "Tom called me up out of the blue and then through him I met Jim and Hal." DeLonge told Bender: "From day one, I figured I needed knights of the round table."[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -4,13 +4,120 @@ tags:
|
|||
- OrganizedCrime
|
||||
- Japan
|
||||
- TheOctopus
|
||||
- PostwarJapan
|
||||
- Lockheed
|
||||
- Sanctions
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
summary: "The Yakuza is a Japanese organized crime syndicate that was implicated in the broader network investigated by Danny Casolaro as 'The Octopus."
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- Yakuza
|
||||
- Japanese Yakuza
|
||||
- Japanese organized crime
|
||||
- Boryokudan
|
||||
- Gokudo
|
||||
summary: "The Yakuza are Japanese organized crime groups named in CIA files on Yoshio Kodama, in the Lockheed bribery affair, in Treasury sanctions from 2012 and in the Casolaro Octopus literature."
|
||||
created: 2026-10-07
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-07
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: Tadamasa Goto
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: leader of the Goto-gumi, described by David Kaplan as an offshoot of the Yamaguchi-gumi
|
||||
fn: 21
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: Harold Okimoto
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: alleged top agent of the Yakuza overseas
|
||||
fn: 28
|
||||
---
|
||||
The [[Yakuza]] is a Japanese organized crime syndicate that was implicated in the broader network investigated by [[Danny Casolaro]] as "[[The Octopus]]." The syndicate's involvement was highlighted in [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] wiretap summaries, which revealed a government drug trafficking operation that included high-ranking [[La Cosa Nostra]] figures, the [[Gambino Crime Family]], and the Yakuza.[1]
|
||||
The Yakuza (also Boryokudan, Gokudo) are organized crime groups in [[Japan]] divided into clans, the largest of which, the [[Yamaguchi-gumi]], the [[United States Department of the Treasury|Treasury Department]] designated in 2012.[^1] The group appears in the postwar record through occupation-era [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] files on [[Yoshio Kodama]] and [[Ryoichi Sasakawa]], the 1976 [[Lockheed bribe scandal]], and the reporting of [[Danny Casolaro]] on [[The Octopus]].
|
||||
|
||||
[[Robert Booth Nichols]], a key figure in Casolaro's investigation, was linked to the Yakuza. An [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] wiretap summary on Nichols, part of [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] agent [[Thomas Gates]]'s affidavit, connected Nichols to the Yakuza as a money launderer. Furthermore, [[Michael Riconosciuto]] alleged that Nichols was the "godson" of [[Harold Okimoto]], a figure believed to be a top Japanese organized crime figure based in Hawaii and described as a top agent in the Yakuza overseas.[1]
|
||||
### Occupation-era files
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
[1] Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010.
|
||||
A CIA name file on Kodama, released under the [[Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act]], contains a profile sheet stating that Kodama "was instrumental in founding the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)," "had a hand in naming several ministers," and "commands the allegiance of Japan's ultrarightists and is blood brother to a number of yakuza (leaders of the Japanese underworld)."[^2] A second profile sheet in the file states that Kodama, "notorious since the 1920's for his connections with right-wing and underworld groups, is widely reported to have high-level connections in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)," that he has been described by many sources as "a powerful figure in behind-the-scenes political maneuvering," and that he was allegedly visited at his residence by cabinet ministers and by Prime Minister [[Eisaku Sato]]. The sheet also records a reported close relationship with [[Ichiro Kono]] and [[Bamboku Ono]].[^3] The file's background summary describes Kodama (alias Moshakoji Takeharu) as a rightist with underworld connections ("gambling and gangster groups") and with important LDP political figures, and gives his birth as February 18, 1911 in Fukushima Prefecture.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
A counter-intelligence memorandum dated October 3, 1945, filed in the same name file, identifies Kodama as the publisher of a nationalistic journal.[^5] A document dated April 24, 1950, excerpted verbatim in the file, states that on December 24, 1948, [[Shumei Okawa]], Sasagawa Ryoichi, Kodama and a fourth man "were released from prison by the allies and charges against them of being class 'A' war criminals were dropped," and that these men "are reported to be planning in secret the reconstruction of the Japanese military," with an initial aim of "a volunteer corps to join the Chinese Nationalists in their defense of Formosa."[^6] A CIA office memorandum of June 29, 1950 states that Kodama was released on December 24, 1948 along with 13 other suspects and that the Legal Section of [[Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers|SCAP]] announced that no additional trial would be brought. The same memorandum states that Kodama had apparently led underground right-wing movements since his release, that a magazine writer's list of released "Class A" suspects included Kodama, Sasagawa and others, and that Kodama was in fact a "Class B" suspect. It also lists Kodama among officers reported in a recruitment program in Japan for [[Chiang Kai-shek]] and the CC Clique, with 123 recruited on November 11, 1949, and states that when he was picked up by SCAP in 1945 he reportedly turned over radium that was placed in the Bank of Japan vaults.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Counter-intelligence reports in the file note Kodama's close contact after his release from [[Sugamo Prison]] with [[Tsuji Masanobu]], whom the same reports describe as involved in recruiting Japanese soldiers and weapons for Chinese Nationalist forces.[^8] Handwritten notes of an interview with Kodama, attached to a CIA station dispatch of January 10, 1950 that describes him as a former naval intelligence officer in China and a known member of the revised JIS, record him proposing an espionage net whose members would be natives of Korea and China with whom he had business connections. According to the notes, he had promised Mr. Carpenter of the SCAP Legal Section to stay in Tokyo, and a former colonel then working in a G-2 section could vouch for him.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
A document dated April 7, 1950 and excerpted in the file describes a merger of the groups of General Maki, Kodama, a network whose name is obscured in the copy, and probably General Doi, together with a former Foreign Office intelligence group under Tsuchida, working covertly with GHQ and CIC.[^10] The file's background summary states that Kodama was one of the high advisers in Prince Higashikuni's administration in 1945, was the first man to make a personal connection with General [[Douglas MacArthur|MacArthur]] and the Premier, was arrested as a Class A war criminal for dealings in war materiel, and spent three years in jail before being found not guilty.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
A 1953 record in the file identifies Sasagawa as a former head of the Nationalist League who was increasingly active behind the scenes in political and financial circles and was said to be Kodama's "political adviser." The same record states that Sasagawa founded in 1951, with the backing of Osaka and Kansai financiers, an enterprise to promote motorboat racing.[^11] A 1952 record in the file describes [[Taketora Ogata]], a former editor-in-chief of the [[Asahi Shimbun]], as in contact with leading members of the pre-war [[Genyo-sha]], in particular with Sasakawa and Kodama.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group|Interagency Working Group]], which administered the [[Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act]], records in its 2007 final report that the Simon Wiesenthal Center lobbied for release of U.S. documents on amnesties granted to Japanese war criminals, including amnesties granted to supervisors of Japan's biological and chemical warfare program in exchange for data from experiments on humans in [[Unit 731]].[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Covert funding of Japanese politicians
|
||||
|
||||
The editorial note to the 1964 to 1968 Japan volume of the [[Foreign Relations of the United States]] series states that the U.S. Government approved four covert programs in Japan between 1958 and 1968. The note states that the Eisenhower administration authorized the CIA, before the May 1958 elections for the Japanese House of Representatives, to provide a few key pro-American and conservative politicians with "covert limited financial support and electoral advice." The recipients were told only that they were getting support from American businessmen. A 1959 program to split the moderate wing of the leftist opposition received $75,000 for 1960. The note states that "the subsidy program for Japanese political parties was phased out in early 1964," and that a broader program divided almost equally between propaganda and social action was funded at $450,000 for 1964 and continued "throughout the Johnson administration."[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
The New York Times News Service reported on October 9, 1994 that retired intelligence officials and former diplomats said the CIA gave money to the [[Liberal Democratic Party]] and its members in the 1950s and 1960s. "We financed them," said [[Alfred C. Ulmer Jr.]], who ran the CIA's Far East operations from 1955 to 1958. [[Roger Hilsman]], head of the State Department's intelligence bureau in the Kennedy administration, said the payments were by the early 1960s "so established and so routine" that they were a part of American policy toward Japan, and [[U. Alexis Johnson]], Ambassador to Japan from 1966 to 1969, said: "We were financing a party on our side." The report states that the Liberal Democrats have always denied that the support existed.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Lockheed
|
||||
|
||||
The CIA file contains a background summary on Kodama, titled as concerning his involvement in the Lockheed scandal with former prime minister [[Kakuei Tanaka]].[^4] The summary states that it was brought to light during the Lockheed scandal that Kodama received a bribe in connection with a sale, that he was not arrested because of illness but was prosecuted for tax evasion, that after his release from Sugamo he was involved in LDP fund-raising for [[Ichiro Hatoyama]], and that he died of heart failure on the evening of January 17, 1984. It adds that an actor in pornographic films crashed a small plane into Kodama's home and that Kodama's autobiography, translated into English as "I Was Defeated," was a best seller.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Sasakawa and the Unification Church
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Unification Church]] founded the International Federation for Victory over Communism in Japan and named Sasakawa its honorary chairman, according to a 2023 article on the church's relations with the LDP. That article states that Sasakawa had close ties to former prime minister [[Kishi Nobusuke]] and to the conservative wing of the LDP.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Treasury designations
|
||||
|
||||
Executive Order 13581 of July 24, 2011, issued by President [[Barack Obama]], blocks the property of significant transnational criminal organizations. Its Annex lists four entities: the Brothers' Circle, the Camorra, the Yakuza (a.k.a. Boryokudan; a.k.a. Gokudo) and [[Los Zetas]].[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
On February 23, 2012, the Treasury Department designated the Yamaguchi-gumi, its leader [[Kenichi Shinoda]], and [[Kiyoshi Takayama]]. The release called these the first designations under Executive Order 13581. It states that the Yakuza was listed in the Annex for its involvement in serious criminal activities, including weapons trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking, drug trafficking, fraud and money laundering, and that "The Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest and most prominent of the Yakuza’s crime families."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On September 27, 2012, Treasury designated the [[Sumiyoshi-kai]], which the release calls "the second-largest clan within the Japanese Yakuza criminal network," together with two of its leaders, Shigeo Nishiguchi and Hareaki Fukuda.[^18] An OFAC listing under the Transnational Criminal Organization program, dated December 2016, names the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi under the heading "YAKUZA" and lists Tadashi Irie as previously designated on December 19, 2013 as a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi.[^19] On October 2, 2018, Treasury designated two Kobe-based companies, Yamaki, K.K. and Toyo Shinyo Jitsugyo K.K., and four individuals under the same order, describing the companies as real estate firms tied to Yamaguchi-gumi operations.[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Goto and the UCLA transplants
|
||||
|
||||
[[Tadamasa Goto]] underwent a successful liver transplant in July 2001 at the [[UCLA Medical Center]], performed by [[Ronald W. Busuttil]], executive chairman of the university's surgery department, according to the [[Los Angeles Times]]. The Times reported in articles of May 30 and May 31, 2008 that four surgeries on Japanese men were done between 2000 and 2004, that the most prominent recipient, Goto, had been barred from entering the United States because of his criminal history, and that Goto leads the Goto-gumi, which the journalist [[David Kaplan]] describes in his book as an offshoot of the Yamaguchi-gumi. Goto flew from Narita to Los Angeles on May 18, 2001 with his son and, according to his lawyer [[Yoshiyuki Maki]], had hepatitis C.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Jim Stern]], a retired chief of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]'s Asian criminal enterprise unit, told the Times that the FBI helped Goto obtain a visa to enter the United States in 2001 in exchange for leads on potentially illegal activity in this country by Japanese criminal gangs. Stern said: "I don't think Goto gave the bureau anything of significance." Stern said the FBI did not help Goto arrange his surgery at UCLA, and a law enforcement official told the Times that Goto was again barred from reentering the United States after the transplant.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
The Times reported, citing a law enforcement official, that Busuttil performed liver transplants on three other men barred from entering the United States because of criminal records or suspected affiliation with Japanese organized crime groups, whom it did not name because they could not be reached. UCLA and Busuttil said in statements that they do not make moral judgments about patients and treat them based on medical need.[^21] Maki said that Busuttil traveled to Japan, examined Goto on more than one occasion and evaluated him while he was in custody in 2006, and that Busuttil's medical opinion was cited in a court petition to have Goto released for medical care.[^21] The former Yomiuri Shimbun reporter [[Jake Adelstein]] told the Times that after he made inquiries in 2005 about the circumstances of Goto's transplant, men visited him and told him: "Erase the story or be erased."[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
In its follow-up, the Times reported that Goto donated $100,000 to the hospital less than three months after the surgery, that a plaque dated November 2001 recognizes the "Goto Research Fund," and that a second man from the group of four donated $100,000 in 2002. UCLA spokeswoman Dale Tate said the university had "no reason to question" the source of the money, and when asked whether the money had any bearing on the transplants said: "Absolutely not." Senator [[Charles Grassley]] said he would demand additional information from the university.[^22] Goto was arrested in Japan in May 2006 on suspicion of real estate fraud and was acquitted in March 2008.[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
### Federal prosecutions
|
||||
|
||||
On February 21, 2024, federal prosecutors in the [[United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] announced a superseding indictment charging Takeshi Ebisawa with trafficking nuclear materials from [[Burma]]. Prosecutors alleged that Ebisawa is a leader of a Japan-based international crime syndicate and that he and others showed samples of the material to an undercover agent of the [[Drug Enforcement Administration]] who was posing as a trafficker with access to an Iranian general.[^24] In a Justice Department release of March 3, 2026, Ebisawa was reported sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty before Judge Colleen McMahon to six counts, including nuclear materials trafficking, narcotics trafficking, weapons and money laundering offenses. The release states that the DEA investigated him from about 2019 until his arrest on or about April 4, 2022, and that he laundered $100,000 of what the undercover agent described as narcotics proceeds for a 15 percent commission.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
### Fukushima decontamination work
|
||||
|
||||
The Asahi Shimbun reported that at least two gangsters were arrested in 2011 on suspicion of sending laborers to construction sites in Iwate Prefecture, one a senior member of a Sumiyoshi-kai affiliated gang arrested in July and the other a member of a Yamaguchi-gumi affiliated gang arrested in October. It reported that on January 31, 2013 police arrested a senior member of a gang affiliated with the Sumiyoshi-kai on suspicion of sending laborers in November to a decontamination project in Date, Fukushima Prefecture, which it described as the first arrest of a gangster over suspected involvement in a project to remove radioactive substances.[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
Jake Adelstein, writing in [[The Atlantic Wire]], reported that Makoto Owada, identified as a high-ranking member of the Sumiyoshi-kai, was charged with dispatching workers to the Fukushima reconstruction site from May to July 2011. According to Adelstein, Owada first sent the workers to a [[Tokyo Electric Power Company|TEPCO]] subcontractor in Tochigi Prefecture, and some of the hazard pay the workers received was allegedly kicked back to the Sumiyoshi-kai as "association dues." Adelstein wrote that Owada admitted in initial statements to police that he had dispatched workers, including his own yakuza soldiers, to nuclear plant construction sites around Japan from as early as 2007, and that police suspected he worked with the Yamaguchi-gumi in a joint labor-supply venture.[^27]
|
||||
|
||||
### Okimoto and the Octopus
|
||||
|
||||
The writer [[Cheri Seymour]] wrote that FBI wiretap summaries revealed a government drug trafficking operation that included high-ranking [[La Cosa Nostra]] figures, the [[Gambino Crime Family]], and the Yakuza.[^28] Seymour wrote that the FBI wiretap summary on [[Robert Booth Nichols]], part of the affidavit of FBI agent [[Thomas Gates]], connected Nichols to the Yakuza as a money launderer.[^28] Seymour also wrote that [[Michael Riconosciuto]] alleged that Nichols was the "godson" of [[Harold Okimoto]], whom Seymour describes as a 67-year-old car dealer in Hawaii believed by some sources to be a top Japanese organized crime figure and a top agent of the Yakuza overseas.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
Seymour wrote that Okimoto's company, [[Island Tobacco]], sold cigarettes at the Casino du Liban, which was controlled by the Syrian mob and used as a front by narcotics people.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Treasury Imposes Sanctions On Key Members Of The Yakuza And Brothers’ Circle Criminal Organizations," press release, February 23, 2012, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/tg1430.
|
||||
[^2]: Central Intelligence Agency, name file "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 1, released under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, PDF p. 11 (profile sheet, "Rightist Leader"), copy at https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol01_CIA.pdf.
|
||||
[^3]: CIA, "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 1, PDF p. 7 (profile sheet, "Rightist Leader"), https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol01_CIA.pdf.
|
||||
[^4]: CIA, "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 1, PDF p. 83 (background summary, "Background of KODAMA Yoshio, who was involved in the Lockheed Scandal with former prime Minister TANAKA Kakuei"), https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol01_CIA.pdf.
|
||||
[^5]: CIA, "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 1, PDF p. 23 (counter-intelligence memorandum, October 3, 1945), https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol01_CIA.pdf.
|
||||
[^6]: CIA, "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 1, PDF p. 46 (cross-file abstract of a document dated April 24, 1950, Attachment A, "Plans for Reconstruction of the Japanese Military"), https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol01_CIA.pdf.
|
||||
[^7]: CIA, "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 1, PDF pp. 48 to 49 (office memorandum, June 29, 1950, Request K-2202), https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol01_CIA.pdf.
|
||||
[^8]: CIA, "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 1, PDF p. 60, https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol01_CIA.pdf.
|
||||
[^9]: CIA, "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 1, PDF pp. 125 to 127 (dispatch to Chief, FE, January 10, 1950, with handwritten interview notes), https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol01_CIA.pdf.
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[^10]: CIA, "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 1, PDF p. 155 (cross-file abstract of a document dated April 7, 1950), https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol01_CIA.pdf.
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[^11]: CIA, "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 1, PDF p. 50 (activities of Sasagawa Ryoichi, September 10, 1953), https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol01_CIA.pdf.
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[^12]: CIA, "KODAMA, YOSHIO," vol. 2, PDF p. 6 (abstract of a document dated October 10, 1952 on Ogata Taketora), https://mansell.com/Resources/special_files/KIKAN/KODAMA_Yoshio_Vol02_CIA.pdf.
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[^13]: Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, Final Report to Congress (April 2007), "Japan Under Scrutiny," pp. 20 to 21, https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/reports/final-report-2007.pdf.
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[^14]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XXIX, pt. 2, Japan, ed. Karen L. Gatz (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2006), Editorial Note, p. 1, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v29p2/d1.
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[^15]: "CIA Spent Millions to Back Right Wing in Japan, Ex-Agents Say," New York Times News Service, Deseret News, October 9, 1994, https://www.deseret.com/1994/10/9/19135214/cia-spent-millions-to-back-right-wing-in-japan-ex-agents-say/.
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[^16]: Power News, "An Unholy Alliance: How the Unification Church Penetrated Japan's Ruling Liberal Democratic Party," nippon.com, March 3, 2023, https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/c12101/an-unholy-alliance-how-the-unification-church-penetrated-japan%E2%80%99s-ruling-liberal-democrat.html.
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[^17]: Executive Order 13581 of July 24, 2011, Blocking Property of Transnational Criminal Organizations, 76 Fed. Reg. 44757 (July 27, 2011), Annex, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2011-07-27/pdf/2011-19156.pdf.
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[^18]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Treasury Sanctions Members and Associates of Japanese Criminal Organization," press release, September 27, 2012, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/tg1722.
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[^19]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, "Transnational Criminal Organization Executive Order 13581," new designations, December 2016, https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/7026/download.
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[^20]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Treasury Sanctions Individuals and Companies Associated with Japan's Major Organized Crime Syndicate, the Yakuza," press release, October 2, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm499.
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[^21]: John M. Glionna and Charles Ornstein, "Japanese gang figures got new livers at UCLA," Los Angeles Times, May 30, 2008, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-may-30-me-ucla30-story.html.
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[^22]: Charles Ornstein and John M. Glionna, "After livers, cash to UCLA," Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2008, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-may-31-me-ucla31-story.html.
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[^23]: "Japanese gangsters got livers at L.A. hospital," NBC News, May 30, 2008, relaying the Los Angeles Times story, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/japanese-gangsters-got-livers-l-hospital-flna1C9463298.
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[^24]: Associated Press, report of February 21, 2024 on the Ebisawa indictment, https://www.news4jax.com/news/national/2024/02/21/feds-accuse-alleged-japanese-crime-boss-of-conspiring-to-traffic-nuclear-material/; U.S. Department of Justice, "Justice Department Announces Nuclear Materials Trafficking Charges Against Japanese Yakuza," press release, February 21, 2024, https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-nuclear-materials-trafficking-charges-against-japanese-yakuza.
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[^25]: U.S. Department of Justice release of March 3, 2026 on the sentencing of Takeshi Ebisawa, as posted by the Internal Revenue Service, https://www.irs.gov/node/157161.
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[^26]: Asahi Shimbun, "Police struggle to prevent gangsters from profiting in disaster areas," Asahi Asia & Japan Watch, January 31 to February 1, 2013, as archived by the Japan Disaster Archive, https://jdarchive.org/api/item/1698468.
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[^27]: Jake Adelstein, "How the Yakuza and Japan's Nuclear Industry Learned to Love Each Other," The Atlantic Wire, reprinted by TRANSCEND Media Service on July 22, 2013, https://www.transcend.org/tms/?p=32135.
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[^28]: Cheri Seymour, *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal* (TrineDay, 2010). Sole source for the passages so cited.
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