Matthew Belanger, a former U.S. Marine, was arrested on June 10th in New York and charged with making false statements to a federal firearms licensee in order to make straw purchases of an assault rifle and handgun.
Federal prosecutors say Belanger plotted mass murder and sexual assault to “decrease the number of minority residents” in the United States as part of his membership in a far-right neo-Nazi group, “Rapekrieg”, and that while a Marine, Belanger plotted far more serious crimes as part of the neo-Nazi group.
In one case, prosecutors claim an unnamed New York police officer purchased a PTR91 assault rifle for Belanger while he was stationed in Hawaii. Belanger allegedly had the same officer also purchase a Luger – a handgun used by the Nazi armed forces during World War II – FBI agents noted in the affidavit. Belanger served with the Marines from October 2019 through May 2021, when the Marine Corps discharged him with an 'Other Than Honorable Discharge'.
On October 2020 the Marines, along with the FBI, searched Belanger’s barracks and seized a laptop and two cell phones. Nearly 2000 images, videos, and documents related to white supremacist power groups, neo-Nazi literature, brutality towards the Jewish community, violence towards women (including rape), and mass murder plans were found on Belanger’s electronic devices.
According to law enforcement, Belanger engaged in "femspoofing" and created a fake Twitter account in the name of a fictitious gay Jewish man with two adopted daughters named "Israel Shillingstein" in order to "generate Black hatred towards the Jewish community by making derogatory statements while disguised as a Jewish man."
Some of the disturbing content included in Rapekrieg’s reported manifesto stated: "If you have any doubts about being able to pull the trigger on a Jewish child, then you are not mentally prepared for the level of violence that first-world collapses will bring" and "For every white child beaten, white man stabbed, white family gunned down, that malice is transferred to us tenfold. The Rape ideology seeks to channel this bottled enmity and release it upon our enemies in a manner so boundless and excruciating that nonwhites will develop an entire culture of fear around the white man for the rest of time."
Rapekrieg was said to have "overlapping beliefs and membership with other neo-Nazi groups such as 'Rapewaffen' and 'Atomwaffen.' Both groups had been charged with federal firearms offenses and have been linked to at least one murder.
According to Department of Justice memo, Belanger trained with airsoft guns in the woods of Long Island as part of a plot to attack the "Zionist Order of Governments."
The memo also alleges Belanger was the subject of an FBI Joint Terrorism Taskforce investigation into allegedly plotting to "engage in widespread homicide and sexual assault." Much of Belanger’s ideology and plotting, the memo says, is based around a desire to lessen the number of nonwhite Americans and to rape "white women to increase the production of white children."
Far right wing extremists like Matthew Belanger are not only a threat to Jewish people but modern society as a whole. We must stand together against extremists like him and be vigilant - if you see something concerning, please report it to StopAntisemitism here.