Politics

How the DOJ’s major takedown of a neo-Nazi group contradicts MAGA’s worldview

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

How the DOJ’s major takedown of a neo-Nazi group contradicts MAGA’s worldview

The federal indictment of 68 defendants accused of being members of (or being associated) with a criminal gang driven by race-based hate followed an investigation that led to the seizure of Nazi paraphernalia, including Adolf Hitler posters, and 97 pounds of fentanyl, federal officials said Wednesday. U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, who announced the charges, called it one of the “largest takedowns in the history of the Department of Justice against a neo-Nazi, white supremacist, violent extremist organization.” That announcement landing in the final weeks of a presidential election prompts us to contrast the facts of our crime problem with the fiction that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, would have us believe.

The indictment prompts us to contrast the facts of our crime problem with the fiction that Donald Trump and JD Vance would have us believe.

The dismantlement of the group that called itself the Peckerwoods, a San Fernando Valley arm of the notorious Aryan Brotherhood white supremacy organization, came in the form of charges for alleged racketeering, firearms trafficking, drug trafficking and financial fraud. If convicted as charged, some members, who adorn themselves with tattoos of swastikas and other hate symbolscould face life behind bars. The group was so heavily armed and so violent that the FBI deployed its elite Hostage Rescue Team from Quantico, Virginia, to support the arrests. According to the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, the Peckerwoods, a derogatory name historically used against white people, “has as its mission to plan attacks against racial, ethnic, religious minorities.”

Agents seized an arsenal of illegal guns, “bomb-making components” and dozens of kilograms of fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin, according to law enforcement officials.

The details of this multifaceted investigation reveal a significant component of America’s crime problem: hardened, U.S.-born criminals who traffic in the drugs, guns and violence plaguing our country. This contrasts with the fact-free fearmongering fabrications being sold to MAGA believers. It’s not that minorities don’t commit crimes; nor is that migrants never murder or rape. But Trump and Vance want voters to believe our gun, drug and violence problems are being driven by migrants when the opposite is true.

Take Trump’s claim that Venezuelan gang Aragua Train took over an entire apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado. It’s a scary story, but it’s not true. Just ask Aurora’s police chief. Facts be damned, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott fell in line with Trump and claimed a hotel in El Paso was taken over by Tren de Aragua, which he declared a foreign terrorist organization. Again, it’s a frightening scenario, but it’s devoid of evidence.

During the vice presidential debate, Vance claimed the vast majority of illegal guns used in crimes here come from Mexican cartels. The truth is quite different; it’s the U.S. that’s arming Mexican cartels. We have detailed data demonstrating the extent to which American weapons are fueling the violence in Mexico, right down to the make and model of the guns found at crime scenes across the border.

Trump and Vance want voters to believe our gun, drug and violence problems are being driven by migrants when the opposite is true.

Continuing their “migrants are criminals” mantra, Trump and Vance repeatedly make false claims about Haitian migrants eating household pets and bringing diseases to Springfield, Ohio, lies that officials including the local police chief and Ohio governor have forcefully refuted. There’s no evidence that Haitians are harming the people of Springfield, but there is evidence that the U.S. is exporting violence to Haiti in the form of black-market guns found in the hands of gang members who have wreaked havoc on Port-au-Prince. The U.S. is spending millions to help Haiti battle gang violence, while most of the weapons those gangs have are from the U.S.

In Tuesday’s debate, Vance implied undocumented migrants are responsible for smuggling fentanyl into the U.S., a problem he blamed on what he characterized as the Biden-Harris administration’s weak posture on border security. The truth is that almost 90% of fentanyl enters the U.S. through legal ports of entry, transported by people who have a legal right to be here. Almost half of them are Americans. Importantly, recent indicators show a fentanyl supply shortage in the U.S., an encouraging sign that Biden’s efforts to counter the drug flow from Mexico and put pressure on China to stem the manufacture of precursor components may be working.

There’s no clear evidence that migrants commit crimes at any higher rate than U.S.-born citizens. In fact, we’d be hard-pressed to prove that undocumented migrants pose a greater crime threat than those 68 white supremacist gang members who, according to this week’s indictment, were part of a major California criminal enterprise.

The Trump-Vance falsehoods about crime are a cornerstone of their strategy to win votes through fear. The reality is that crime in the U.S. has continued to drop through the last six months. The latest FBI crime report shows that murders in the period from January to June dropped 23% from the same period in 2023, while violent crime fell 10% and reported rapes decreased by 18%. Aggravated assaults during that period decreased 8% year over year, according to the data, while robberies fell 14% and reported property crime was down 13%. The murder rate fell at the fastest rate ever last year, and shows no sign of stopping.

At a recent campaign event in the Detroit area, Trump said of the majority-Black city, “You can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped.” The Detroit police chief begged to differ and invited Trump to walk the streets with him. Trump won’t do that, of course, because the sight of people in Detroit walking around without fear wouldn’t fit his narrative. Sadly, you likely won’t hear Trump or Vance talk about the takedown of a white supremacist criminal enterprise in California or denounce what that gang stands for. That’s why it’s on us to separate fact from fiction, and reality from their ticket’s reckless disregard for the truth.

Frank Figliuzzi

Frank Figliuzzi is an BLN columnist and Senior National Security and Intelligence Analyst for NBC News and BLN. He was the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, where he served 25 years as a special agent and directed all espionage investigations across the government. He is the author of “The FBI Way: Inside the Bureau’s Code of Excellence.”

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

13 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”