HOLOPAW, Fla., July 19 (UPI) -- Court records show an FBI investigation into a Florida white supremacist group was aided by an informant who joined the group.
The FBI investigation originally focused on ties between Florida motorcycle clubs and white supremacist groups across North America and Europe. The operation zeroed in on the American Front neo-Nazi group in Holopaw, Fla., when an informant infiltrated the group.
The records do not show how the informant came to the aid of the FBI, but the Orlando Sentinel suggests he may have been offered the opportunity in lieu of sentencing for criminal charges.
The informant began surveillance in 2009, while dealing ounces of cocaine monthly to members of Kavallerie Brigade, another neo-Nazi biker group. By attending Murder City Hammerfest in 2010, a Detroit music festival billed as "The biggest, baddest skinhead event in North America," he developed contacts with white supremacists in Germany and reported back to the FBI.
The informant eventually joined the American Front as a full member, later dispatching other informants from the United States and Canada.
His surveillance work, yielding hundreds of pages of reports and several video clips, have aided in the arrest of 14 American Front members on charges of illegal firearms possession, participating in anti-government paramilitary training, conspiracy to commit a hate crime and planning to attack an undisclosed target.
