A breach of data from Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo has revealed that millions of dollars have been raised on the site for far-right businesses and groups, many of which are banned from raising funds on other platforms.
It also identifies previously anonymous high-dollar donors to far-right actors, some of whom enjoy positions of wealth, power, or public responsibility.
Some of the biggest beneficiaries were members of groups such as the Proud Boys, designated a terrorist group in Canada, many of whose fundraisers are directly related to the January 6 attack on the US capital.
The violation, which is shared with journalists by the transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, shows that the site has been used for a wide variety of legitimate charitable purposes, such as crowdfunding medical bills, aid projects and religious missions.
But the site’s dedicated attitude towards far-right actors means that groups banned from other fundraising platforms and payment processors after delivering hate speech and violence also used the platform.
During at least 11 crowdfunding campaigns related to the Proud Boys, members of the group, including some now facing conspiracy charges related to the Capitol attack, raised more than $ 375,000. Some of these fundraisers have raised large sums of money in a short period of time.
After the chairman of Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was arrested on January 4 on charges related to firearms and the vandalism of a black church during a previous meeting, a fundraiser as a ‘defense fund’ in only four days earning $ 113,000.
A large portion of the money came from a number of high-dollar donors who preferred to remain anonymous on the site, but whose identification was nevertheless preserved by GiveSendGo.
The anonymous donations included $ 1,000 from an email address associated with Gabe Carrera, a personal injury lawyer in Florida who considers himself the driving attorney. Another $ 1,000 that came to Tarrio was associated with an email address of Paul C Gill, an employee and former pilot of Hawaiian Airlines in Honolulu, who had previously made donations to Donald Trump’s campaigns and the Republican Party, and who made public political comments. in the form of letters to the editor in local newspapers.
None of Tarrio’s donors responded immediately to requests for comment, except for Gerardo G Gonzalez, who donated $ 1,000 to Tarrio anonymously on January 7.
Public records show Florida-based Gonzalez is a former pharmacist who owns at least six properties in Miami Beach and Homestead, Florida. Its apartments, condominiums and an area are worth more than $ 2.4 million and have sold millions of other properties worth millions more in previous decades.
In a telephone conversation, Gonzalez said his support for the Proud Boys was motivated by his belief that ‘there is no systemic racism in this country’, and his opposition to ‘BLM and Antifa’ which he said was ‘true extremism’. ‘represented in the United States. He also used derogatory terms for Latinos and Democrats.
Other Proud Boy fundraisers have raised large sums and attracted a similar series of high anonymous donations.
Following the Capitol riots, a fundraiser in the name of ‘Medical Assistance to DC Proud Boy Victims’ on 106 and 107 earned only 6 and 7 January. One anonymous donation of $ 5,000 was associated with an email address of Ou Yin Lu, a resident and businesswoman of Hacienda Heights, California, who previously donated $ 14,640 to Trump’s campaign funds, the Republican National Committee and a former representative of the State of California Bob Huff during the 2020 campaign funding cycle.
After a complaint was lodged with the organizer of the Proud Boys, Joe Biggs, for his alleged role in the Capitol attack, an anonymous donation of $ 1000 came from an e-mail address of a New York woman who ‘s social media accounts call her a civil servant. education teacher. Overall, Biggs raised more than $ 6,000 on the site.
Other fundraisers related to Proud Boy included one for North Carolina Proud Boy, Jeremy Bertino, also known as Noble Beard, who was stabbed on Dec. 12 during a controversial rally in Washington DC. Between December 16 and 19, the effort amounts to $ 61,355.
Several parallel fundraisers wanted to travel and fund equipment for Proud Boys who wanted to attend the event on January 6 in person.
Two separate fundraisers prompted customers to fund protective equipment and communications equipment for local chapters of Proud Boys, which raised $ 4,876 and $ 12,900, respectively.
Later, fundraisers were set up in the name of individual activists who are now facing serious charges as a result of the events of 6 January.
One who earned $ 6,475 for money in just one day was for the benefit of Washington State Proud Boy and national elder Ethan Nordean, also known as Rufio Panman. Another for Nick Ochs, the self-described leader of the Hawaiian chapter of Proud Boys, brought in $ 19,687 between January 8 and 13.
Candyce Kelshall, president of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies-Vancouver, which conducts research at Simon Fraser University on violent transnational social movements, said the far-right crowd funding on GiveSendGo is just ‘the tip of the iceberg’ was, and similar efforts took place on up to 54 other crowdfunding sites that revealed her research.
However, she said GiveSendGo was ‘particularly treacherous’ because of the offering of such crowdfunding in the form of charity-based religion.