Spanish police on Monday said they had broken up a cell of “The Base”, a transnational neo-Nazi white supremacist group designated a terrorist organization by the European Union, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The U.S.-founded movement operates through a decentralized, international network of paramilitary cells that aims at perpetrating attacks and preparing for a “race war,” the police said in a statement.
An investigation launched earlier this year uncovered a Spanish cell whose members were “highly radicalized” and had trained using “paramilitary techniques and equipment,” the police added.
In recent months, the suspects had encouraged “violent acts, even stating openly that they were prepared to carry out targeted attacks for the cause,” authorities said.
The leader of the cell was in “direct contact” with the group’s founder, who one month ago called for “targeted attacks with the aim of bringing down Western democratic institutions,” police said.
Police arrested three suspects last week, including the leader, who is in custody on charges of membership of a terrorist organization, recruitment, indoctrination and training with terrorist aims and the illegal possession of weapons.
They also seized firearms, ammunition and neo-Nazi paraphernalia during raids in the eastern province of Castellon.
Police released a video showing officers raiding a property and handcuffing suspects. The video also showed officers seizing guns and other weapons, as well as books with former Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on the cover.
U.S. citizen Rinaldo Nazzaro started the group in 2018 as a network for radical right nationalists readying for armed conflict and then moved to Saint Petersburg and took up Russian citizenship, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
In 2020, FBI agents arrested former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Jordan Mathews and two other members of “The Base” who were allegedly plotting a terror attack at a pro-gun rally in Virginia. The following year, Mathews was sentenced to nine years in prison in Maryland.
Last year, the European Union added “The Base” to its terrorist list, placing sanctions including a travel ban and a freeze of assets in Europe.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the group is “an antisemitic, white nationalist network that trains members in survivalism and paramilitary skills to prepare them to mount an armed resistance against the government.”
“Made up of small, terroristic cells, The Base believes society should be pushed to collapse so a white ethnostate can arise out of the ruins,” the SPLC says.