On Monday, June 7, anti-terror police in Italy said it has dismantled a far-right extremist group that was allegedly plotting to bomb a NATO base, Politico reported.
Italian carabinieri seized photographs of Hitler, swastikas, and a book listing Jewish surnames during coordinated raids on Monday on the homes of 12 alleged members of the Roman Aryan Order, a Nazi-inspired white supremacist group. One of the accused was voted the winner of an online Miss Hitler beauty pageant in 2019, calling herself Miss Eva Braun.
Investigators said that the police decided to strike after accessing a WhatsApp group called the Judenfrei League — “judenfrei” being a term Nazis used to describe areas “cleansed” of Jews during the Holocaust — in which members allegedly shared instructions on how to manufacture homemade explosives as part of a plan against a NATO base.
Importantly, it was noted that the investigation began yet in 2019, as part of a wider probe into white supremacist and far-right movements. Police said in a statement that this group was “dedicated to publishing racist and discriminatory, Nazi-inspired, anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying content, videos and images on social media.”