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Nick Fuentes received $250,000 to be an agent provocateur at the Capitol

Julio Cortez / AP / Scanpix / LETAJulio Cortez / AP / Scanpix / LETA

NEWS

Before the Capitol Storming, a Programmer Sent 28 Bitcoins to Far-Right Activists — and Killed Himself. The Biggest Recipient of the Money Was Seen in Washington on the Day of the Clashes

01:32, 15 January 2021
Source: Chainalysis

Far-right activists and internet personalities received a large donation of bitcoin about a month before  the storming of the Capitol , according to New York-based anti-money laundering and cryptocurrency fraud startup Chainalysis.

According to the company, on December 8, 2020, the donor — a now deceased programmer from France whose name the company does not disclose — transferred 28.15 bitcoins to 22 virtual wallets in one transaction. At that time, the total transfer amounted to $522,000; now it exceeds one million dollars.

Many of the wallets that received the bitcoins belong to far-right activists, alt-right organizations, and internet personalities. The largest donation — 13.5 bitcoins, or about $250,000 at the time of the transfer — went to Nick Fuentes, the leader of the far-right group Groypers, whose YouTube channel was suspendedin February 2020 for hate speech, Holocaust denial, and conspiracy theories.

As Chainalysis notes, Fuentes was promoting a pro-Trump rally in Washington that ended in riots. A few days before the storming of the Capitol, he called on his audience to kill lawmakers to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president, saidMegan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University who monitors online activity of extremist communities. On the day of the storming, Fuentes was seen at a rally in Washington, as well as directly at the Capitol. Fuentes himself claimed that he did not enter the Capitol. At the same time, his supporters were seen inside the building.

Many journalists falsely claim that I was photographed in Nancy Pelosi's office with [streamer] Baked Alaska - this is fake news. I did not enter the Capitol building. I was outside on the lawn in a completely different outfit (pictured on the right is Nick Fuentes holding a megaphone)

Chainalysis noted that other recipients included streamer Ethan Ralph and the U.S. anti-immigration organization VDARE. The owners of the other wallets have not yet been identified.

Chainalysis notes that a day after the large transfer, on December 9, the sender from France left a message on his blog — the first since 2014. In it, he talked about health problems and a decision to commit suicide. The company's analysts found several details in the message that indicate that this is the person who sent bitcoins to far-right activists. Chainalysis does not name the programmer. It was probably  Laurent Bachelier . On December 9, a post called "The End" appeared on his website, which is now inaccessible, like his entire blog (it remains in the web archive).

Source: https://amp.meduza.io/feature/2021/01/15/pered-shturmom-kapitoliya-programmist-otpravil-28-bitkoinov-ultrapravym-aktivistam-i-pokonchil-s-soboy-krupneyshego-poluchatelya-deneg-videli-v-vashingtone-v-den-stolknoveniy