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Hatewatch identified Anglin鈥檚 transactions through software that specializes in analyzing cryptocurrency transactions. Hatewatch believes based upon our reading of that software that in 2016 Anglin paid money to a Russian darknet site that traffics in hacked personal data, drugs, ransomware, stolen credit cards and money laundering. Hatewatch could not determine exactly why Anglin transferred currency to the apparent darknet site highlighted through the software. He did not respond to an email requesting comment on the findings published in this story, but he did deny them in a neo-Nazi forum he operates.

鈥淭his is totally fake. I don't even know what any of this is about. I never bought any Russian darknet drugs lol,鈥� Anglin told other forum users in a comment on July 16. 鈥淚 have never used bitcoin for anything other than website stuff.鈥� You can read Anglin鈥檚 complete response to this analysis by .

Andrew Anglin

Anglin, a neo-Nazi known for leading internet-based harassment campaigns against women, Black, Jewish and Muslim people, among others, issued the Bitcoin payments in July and August of 2016, Hatewatch determined. At that time, Anglin produced a deluge of propaganda promoting Donald Trump鈥檚 presidential campaign. (Anglin voted for Trump that year from the southern Russian city of Krasnodar.) The 澳彩开奖 successfully sued Anglin for $14 million over the terror campaign he organized against Tanya Gersh, a Montana-based Jewish real estate agent he targeted through his website in December 2016. Anglin has hidden from the public in recent years and has so far against him.

Promoting the darknet to a generation of extremists

Anglin and his Daily Stormer collaborator Andrew 鈥�weev鈥� Auernheimer have promoted the darknet among the site鈥檚 community of readers for years. By darknet, Hatewatch refers to a layer of the internet that is only accessible through Tor, a peer-to-peer web browser that enables users to be anonymous. In an era when typically can obtain privacy online, activists as a means of protecting one鈥檚 identity from those who seek to steal data or create harm. Anglin and Auernheimer seek anonymity through Tor to help them engage in pro-fascist activism without outsiders detecting their activity, which often includes stirring up online harassment campaigns. Anglin advocated for his readers to download and employ Tor back in August 2015, when explaining how to skirt around software that blocks IP addresses.

鈥淲e already know how to deal with the IP blocking. We just use Tor,鈥� Anglin wrote in that post, encouraging his readers to troll a comment section. 鈥淒ownload and use Tor browser. It鈥檚 very simple. Comment on the top stories until you鈥檙e banned, reset Tor, repeat. The Android version of Tor also works great, if you want to Troll on the move with your smartphone.鈥�

Tech companies such as GoDaddy and Google originally provided web services to the Daily Stormer, but they cut ties with the hate site in August 2017 following the deadly 鈥淯nite the Right鈥� rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which Anglin promoted. Anglin and Auernheimer moved the Daily Stormer to more than a dozen different domains in the months that followed, often using a darknet address as a permanent home for the site at times when readers couldn鈥檛 access it on the clear web, where most internet activity happens. (Anglin sometimes refers to the clear web as the 鈥溾�� to his readers.) Anglin wrote an entry on a personal blog on Aug. 25, 2017, calling the site鈥檚 move to the darknet 鈥�.鈥�

An early proponent of cryptocurrency

Anglin adopted cryptocurrency within years of it becoming available, and today operates at least 200 Bitcoin addresses. In addition to the addresses he uses to solicit donations, many of the other addresses are created as byproducts of his long history using the cryptocurrency. Each time Bitcoin holders receive 鈥渃hange鈥� back from transactions on the blockchain, that 鈥渃hange鈥� is held in a new address. Hatewatch determined that Anglin frequently combined the coins from his 鈥渃hange鈥� addresses with coins held in his known donation addresses in order to make new payments.

Anglin鈥檚 transaction history also stands out for the money he holds relative to other extremists, his volume of transactions and his apparent interest in websites that traffic in illegal goods, stolen data and money laundering, Hatewatch determined. We also found that Anglin has traded at least $1,144,648 worth of Bitcoin in total across 6,147 transactions, 4790 inbound and 1357 outbound, spanning six and a half years. Anglin wrote in his denial that 鈥淸Hatewatch] just print[s] whatever amount of money to try to stop people from donating.鈥� Anglin commonly solicits donations from his readers, sometimes threatening to stop working if he runs out of funds.

鈥淲e have long been banned from operating within the normal financial system. As far back as 2014, we were banned from PayPal and credit card processors, and switched to Bitcoin,鈥� Anglin wrote of cryptocurrency in a .

Hatewatch found a series of transactions involving an address on Dec. 24, 2014, which marks his first known use of the Bitcoin blockchain. On that date, two unidentified Bitcoin users sent Anglin four payments in quick succession of 0.008814 BTC each. (White supremacists place symbolic significance on the numbers 14 and 88.) Hours later, on the same date, someone also sent Anglin a 0.04 BTC payment. The person who sent the payment also transacted multiple times with the white nationalist Don Black, Hatewatch determined. (Black, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, created the white supremacist forum Stormfront and invested early in Bitcoin.) Hatewatch reached out about the transactions by email to Stormfront, Black鈥檚 website, but no one wrote back.

Anglin later spent Bitcoin at sites associated with darknet services, according to Hatewatch鈥檚 interpretation of the blockchain analysis software. In summer 2016, Anglin made payments to a Russian darknet website, Hatewatch found. He paid out roughly $19.68 on July 3, 2016, $31.74 on July 19, 2016, and $15.04 on Aug. 6, 2016, according to our reading of the software. Around the same time, Anglin transacted with addresses on the Bitcoin blockchain associated聽with trafficking in money laundering practices. In cryptocurrency parlance, these 鈥渕ixing services鈥� allow multiple users to combine their coins to obscure their precise destination. Anglin began receiving payments from users through mixing services in October 2016 and continued as recently as January 2020, Hatewatch found.

Daily Stormer鈥檚 move to Monero

Today, Anglin no longer solicits Bitcoin donations on his Daily Stormer website, but instead encourages readers to donate Monero, embraced by the criminal underworld. Designed to obscure transactions from public view, darknet market shoppers spend theoretically untraceable Monero tokens to evade law enforcement scrutiny. For that reason, Hatewatch can analyze only fragments of Anglin鈥檚 cryptocurrency history right now, emphasizing payments he either made or received through known Bitcoin wallets.

鈥淓very Bitcoin transfer is visible publicly,鈥� Anglin about moving Daily Stormer donations to Monero. 鈥淕enerally, your name is not attached to the address in a direct way, but spies from the various 鈥榳oke鈥� anti-freedom organizations have unlimited resources to try to link these transactions to real names. With Monero, the transactions are all hidden.鈥�

The private security company CipherTrace claims to have developed the capacity to trace Monero transactions on behalf of law enforcement, according to . CipherTrace notes in their statement that 45% of darknet markets now carry out transactions in Monero, making it the second most-used cryptocurrency for such transactions behind Bitcoin.

Russian darknet services, American crimes

One example of the type of Russian darknet site Anglin may have paid is 鈥渦niccshop.ru,鈥� which the Justice Department (DOJ) described as being part of a when they issued cybercrime-related charges against 36 people connected to it in February 2018. A man named Andrey Sergeevich Novak operated the Unicc.ru site at the time Anglin made the apparent payments. Novak used the aliases 鈥淯nicc,鈥� 鈥淔aaaxx鈥� and 鈥淔axtrod鈥� while he participated in a shadowy group known as the InFraud Organization, which victimized 鈥渕illions in all 50 states and worldwide,鈥� contributing to losses of over $530 million through hacking and data theft, the indictment said. Hatewatch reached out to the DOJ for an update in the case against Novak and a comment on Anglin鈥檚 apparent use of darknet markets and is awaiting a response.

Law enforcement has also cracked down on Bitcoin mixing services in recent years. Federal authorities arrested Roman Sterlingov, the administrator of a website called BitcoinFog, on money laundering charges . Hatewatch reached out to the Internal Revenue Service for a comment on users of Bitcoin mixing services and an update on the Sterlingov case. If they respond, Hatewatch will update this story.

Editor鈥檚 note: This story has been updated to clarify that the analysis of Andrew Anglin鈥檚 bitcoin wallet data was made by an 澳彩开奖 analyst interpreting data from a blockchain analysis software. Hatewatch also updated the analysis to include Anglin鈥檚 comment about our findings.

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