COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND - FBI agents on Thursday arrested a former Canadian Armed Forces reservist and two other men who have been linked to a violent white supremacist group and were believed to be heading to a pro-gun rally next week in Virginia's capital.
The three men are members of The Base and were arrested on federal charges in a criminal complaint unsealed in Maryland, according to a Justice Department news release.
Tuesday's complaint charged Canadian national Patrik Jordan Mathews, 27, and Brian Mark Lemley Jr., 33, of Elkton, Maryland, with transporting a firearm and ammunition with intent to commit a felony. William Garfield Bilbrough IV, 19, of Denton, Maryland, was charged with transporting and harboring aliens.
The three men were believed to be planning to attend the pro-gun rally planned for Monday in Richmond, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation.
Mathews and Lemley were arrested in Delaware and Bilbrough was arrested in Maryland, according to Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland.
All three men were scheduled to make their initial court appearances Thursday afternoon in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Search since September
U.S. and Canadian authorities had been searching for Mathews since his truck was found in September near the border between the two countries. He was last seen by family members in Beausejour, northeast of Winnipeg, on August 24, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Canadian military's intelligence unit was investigating Mathews for ``possible racist extremist activities'' for several months, according to the Canadian Department of National Defence.
Lemley also is charged with transporting a machine gun and ``disposing of a firearm and ammunition to an alien unlawfully present in the United States.''
The Anti-Defamation League said members of The Base and other white supremacist groups have frequently posted online messages advocating for ``accelerationism,'' a term “white supremacists have assigned to their desire to hasten the collapse of society as we know it.”
``The term is widely used by those on the fringes of the movement, who employ it openly and enthusiastically on mainstream platforms, as well as in the shadows of private, encrypted chat rooms,'' the ADL says.