A neo-Nazi motorcycle gang created by an undercover law-enforcement unit to investigate white supremacists and racist bikers has helped overthrow two domestic-terrorism groups in Central Florida, The Orlando Sentinel reported.
The original investigation began in 2007, when an undisclosed agent traded emails with August Kreis III, a leader of the Aryan Nations hate group who wanted to form a Nazi motorcycle club to serve as the militant arm for white supremacists across the country, according to records obtained by the news source.
Using a false identity, the agent with the Orange County Sheriff's Office became the Aryan Nations' top Florida administrator responsible for recruiting members for what would become the 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle.
Early members included undercover FB agents who infiltrated the club and a biker accused of offering $1,000 to anyone willing to shoot a black man riding an ATV vehicle in rural Osceola County, records show.
"The underlying aspect through all of it was that they were obtaining explosives and explosives expertise, and they intended to use them to kill people in the United States," Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar told the Sentinel last week about what he characterized as the region's most complex undercover operation in decades.
"We have a duty to stop what they were doing."
The two cases have resulted in 20 arrests on charges including, unsuccessful bomb and murder plots, drug dealing, illegal firearms possession, and conducting paramilitary training to prepare for a race war.