Ontario men arrested on terrorism charges linked to neo-Nazi movement

Two Ontario men are facing terrorism-related charges, the RCMP says, after allegedly participating in the creation of manifestos and recruiting videos in support of far-right extremism and the neo-Nazi terrorist movement.

In a news release issued Friday morning, police said the charges stem from an 18-month investigation, with several search warrants carried out in the Toronto and Niagara regions.

The men, according to investigators, helped create Terrorgram Collective manifestos and Atomwaffen Division recruiting videos.

Atomwaffen Division was listed as a terrorist entity in Canada back in 2021, and after that listing, many former members joined "Active Club Canada," investigators say.

Members of the group have been seen performing combat training exercises in community parks. Police provided this photo as an example, with the faces of those involved blurred out:

Investigators say members of the group also have ties to a group called the Hammerskins in Durham region.

Atomwaffen Division is an international neo-Nazi terror group, police say, which started in the U.S. The organization has since spread to the U.K. and Canada, alongside other locales.

"The group calls for acts of violence against racial, religious, and ethnic groups, police, and bureaucrats, to prompt the collapse of society," the RCMP said in its news release.

The Active Club network, meanwhile, is made up of decentralized cells of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, police say. They operate in many U.S. states and in other nations, including Canada.

"The network was created in January 2021 and it promotes mixed martial arts to fight against what it asserts is a system that is targeting the white race, as well as a 'warrior spirit' to prepare for a forthcoming race war," the news release reads.

The third entity mentioned in the news release, The Terrorgram Collective, is a group of channels on the messaging app Telegram that police say share "neo-fascist ideology and that produce and share manuals on how to carry out racially-motivated violence."

Niagara, Ont., man Matthew Althorpe is facing the bulk of the charges linked to the investigation, and has been charged with three counts of commission of hate crime offences for a terrorist group, two counts of participation in the activities of a terrorist group, and one count of facilitating terrorist activity, among other charges.

Toronto man Kristoffer Nippak was charged with one count of participation in the activities of a terrorist group.

Both men appeared in court this week and were held for bail hearings, the RCMP says.