Thread by @bellingcat

ATTN: Some #quarantine reading for you!

It’s one of the most notorious “Terrorgram” neo-Nazi @Telegram channels, devoted to praising the Christchurch shooter

A year to the day after its first post, we learned the identity of one of the men behind it

bellingcat.com/news/2020/03/1…

@telegram This Telegram channel continues to publish and sell translations of the #Christchurch shooter’s manifesto

This caused Zealand PM @jacindaardern to call for action and refer to it as “disgusting” when we broke the news in August 2019:

nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/articl…

@telegram @jacindaardern It’s a channel we know all too well (we won't name it).

The administrators of this channel have threatened Bellingcat staff on multiple occasions, including posting a video showing photos of our staff being shot with a shotgun.

Good times (not really)

https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1169306890158972928

@telegram @jacindaardern In early March 2020, an activist contacted Bellingcat, claiming they had proof of the identity of one of the individuals who runs the channel.

Naturally, we said we’d be very keen to look at any information they had, and asked them to provide more.

@telegram @jacindaardern On condition of anonymity due to safety concerns, the activist provided us a @Telegram chat record, along with screenshots and photos, of a months-long correspondence with Telegram user “Der Stürmer” – who had previously publicly claimed (see screenshot) to be behind the channel

@telegram @jacindaardern In these chats, “Der Stürmer” was convinced he was talking to a pretty neo-Nazi lady. Ah, love.

Instead he spoke to a persona created by the activist.

He told this catfish his age (22), his city of residence (Kyiv, Ukraine), his email and his full name (David Kolomiiets)

@telegram @jacindaardern David was apparently so smitten (e.g., “I fell in love”, he wrote), that he was willing to cough up his photo & nicknames that he used on other websites.

This allowed us to dig beyond what the activist had given us and find two social media accounts associated with David

@telegram @jacindaardern These social media accounts provide further evidence of the connections between “Der Stürmer” and the name he gave, David Kolomiiets.

It even showed up on a Russian search site as a name affiliated with one of the “anonymous” social media accounts

Oops, David, oops!

@telegram @jacindaardern Now that we’ve revealed the identity of someone who helps run the channel – and was behind the idea of printed translation (photo) – we’ll see what the future holds for this channel, its administrators, and their continued attempts to promote and make money off of terror.

Meanwhile, the channel appears to have noticed (we’ve obscured the channel’s name)

Oh look.

The channel admits our story was accurate, stating that the individual we identified was affiliated with the channel — and also admitting he came up with the idea for the manifesto.

As a bonus, they threaten us too.

This is adorable, but David is now trying to cover his tracks.

Note the deleted VKontakte account.

He's also changed his Twitter account.

He will be pleased to know that we knew about the Twitter account, though we hadn't mentioned it in the article.

For some mysterious reason, he also changed his Telegram name.

It's still attached to your previous messages, genius.

Someone who admits to using David's e-mail (hahahaha), while pretending to be his mom (HAHAHAHAHA) is contacting our researchers now.

We have just one question at this point: Dude, are you for real?

Grow up. Ditch the neo-Nazi stuff. Do something worthwhile with your life.

The account originally said it is in Russia.

Now it says it's in Ukraine.

The "mom" claims she is a teacher. In chats with the undercover activist, David had said otherwise.

David, you are COMICALLY BAD AT THIS.

Quit.

Move on.

Being a neo-Nazi is not worth it.

Checking in with "David's mom," a.k.a. David, again.

David is currently in the "appearing to offer us money" stage of his meltdown.

How about stopping the lies, taking responsibility for yourself, and *really* disavowing your hateful ideology, David?

Just a thought.