WASHINGTON - On Monday, US authorities announced the arrests of the co-founder of the notorious Atomwaffen neo-Nazi group and the woman he met online in the latest extremist plot to attack public electricity facilities.
The FBI said in 2015, Brandon Russell, who helped found Atomwaffen, was arrested in Florida after spending four years in prison for possessing bomb-making materials.
The woman, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, was arrested in Maryland, where she had spent time in prison for armed robbery.
Clendaniel, led by Russell, had planned to acquire a gun and attack five electrical substations around Baltimore, Maryland, the FBI said.
Sara Beth Clendaniel and Brandon Russell conspired to inflict maximum harm to the power grid, a key component of the critical infrastructure, said Thomas Sobocinski, a special agent of the FBI Baltimore field office.
Russell provided directions and location information. He described attacking the power transformers as the greatest thing someone can do, as he said in a press conference.
Clendaniels said doing so would probably permanently lay this city to waste, according to the indictment filed in federal court.
The arrest follows a series of attacks on power substations in various parts of the country, believed to be the work of white supremacists who aimed to foment unrest.
In early January, two men were arrested in the state of Washington after attacks on four power substations using high-powered weapons that knocked out power for around 15,500 homes and businesses on Christmas Day.
In early December, 45,000 homes and businesses in Moore County, North Carolina were left without power after someone used a high-powered rifle to damage two electricity substations.
On January 17, another North Carolina power facility was damaged by a gunshot.
There have been no arrests in those cases.
Three men with neo-Nazi ties pleaded guilty in Columbus, Ohio to conspiring to use rifles and explosives to damage power infrastructure in various locations.
In 2021, five men who had white supremacist beliefs were charged in North Carolina with planning similar attacks.
Clendaniels and Russell met online while he was in prison and the two appeared to be close.
She told him she had a potentially terminal kidney disease, and they discussed having kids together and talked about warfare, the indictment said.
There was no evidence that the two met in person.
The indictment said that Atomwaffen was a violent extremist group that targeted racial minorities, the Jewish community, the LGBTQ community, the government, and critical infrastructure.
The group changed its name to National Socialist Order in recent years.