Italian police have arrested a young man on suspicion of inciting racial hatred and terror-related offences.
The 23-year-old suspect from Puglia is alleged to have spread a «white supremacist» agenda in far-right Telegram channels.
Investigators believe he is a member of «The Base» — a US supremacist terrorist organisation — and was acting as a «lone wolf» in Italy.
According to a police statement, the man had been radicalised online and was prepared to die «in defence of the white race».
He is alleged to have spread anti-Semitic, misogynist, and neo-Nazi content online, as well as making death threats against Italian senator Liliana Segre, who survived the Holocaust.
Investigators found a number of weapons at the suspect’s home, including a rifle, a pellet gun, and a crossbow. He also allegedly searched online for resources to make weapons using a 3D printer.
Some of the weapons and cases featured inscriptions with the names of convicted white supremacist terrorists, who carried out attacks in Norway in 2011 and Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
Authorities also say the seized materials had «alarming» links to the ‘white supremacist attack on a Buffalo supermarket in the US in May and another mass shooting in Macerata, Italy, that targeted migrants in 2018.
The suspect was arrested after an anti-terror investigation was launched in 2021.
