They were ready for anything. Four neo-Nazis from Milan (I), political science students, all in their early twenties. Their plan: attacks on leftists and migrants. Their goal: the overthrow, the establishment of a fascist dictatorship.
On June 16, the right-wing cell set out to attack its first victim – a black Muslim.
Investigators from the Italian counter-terrorism unit Digos stopped them at the last minute. They arrested the young men in central Milan. The officers found storm masks, batons and a knife in the backpack of one of the four.
Connection to Swiss like-minded comrades
What the young terrorists did not know: The investigators had observed them for months. The SonntagsBlick has surveillance logs from the Milan justice system. They show how dangerous the four neo-Nazis were – and how they established connections with Swiss comrades shortly before their arrest.
The head of the Milan cell, AT *, was responsible for contact with Switzerland. In encrypted chats with his fellow campaigners, the 20-year-old acted under the code name “Breivik” – named after the right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in the 2011 attack on the Norwegian island of Utøya.
On May 15, the young Breivik traveled to Bern. There he visited members of the right-wing extremist group Junge Tat, who had invited him. Security agencies watched the meeting. The neo-Nazis went on a hike to a “remote, wooded area”, and later they fought with anti-fascist activists.
Enthusiastic about meeting the Swiss
The Milanese T. wanted not only to make contact with like-minded people in Switzerland, but also to buy a weapon. Even before his trip to Bern, he had arranged a deal, which in the end failed. It is unclear whether the owner of the gun was a member of the boy Tat.
T. was enthusiastic about the meeting with the Swiss. Back in Milan, he raved about the group’s activists and their bodies, hardened by combat training, in a bugged telephone conversation: “Look at them and then look at those from Casapound or Forza Nuova (Italian neo-Nazi groups; ed.), The fat guys with cirrhosis of the liver. That is a completely different matter. “
Only the public appearance of the boy Tat on social media was suspect to the Milanese. The group is subversive, but then operates “in the light of the sun”. This offers the security authorities unnecessary targets.
Fantasies of global race war
The right-wing extremists of Junge Tat rely on professionally produced propaganda videos that they distribute online via Instagram and Telegram. With their appearances, the group has managed to make right-wing extremism appear attractive again for young people. Thousands follow their channels.
To the outside world, the members of Junge Tat pretend to be hip patriots. But behind the scenes they fantasize about the global race war – and network internationally. The authorities have repeatedly taken action against the group. Supporters were temporarily arrested and weapons confiscated in the cantons of Zurich and Lucerne.
After the meeting in Bern, the militant Milanese intended to keep in touch with the Junge Tat. Although they wanted to operate primarily in Italy with their own cell, which they called “Avanguardia Rivoluzionaria” (Revolutionary Vanguard), they also wanted to build an international network.
«Dominance of the white race» as the goal
The anti-terror investigators have thwarted these plans for the time being. Milan justice documents show that investigators classified the group of four as a “serious threat to public order”.
The dialogues between “Breivik” and his colleagues would show that the attack on Muslim blacks on June 16, which was prevented, was only the beginning of a whole series of attacks against migrants, the left and “the elite”.
According to the documents, all the activities of Avanguardia Rivoluzionaria have the same strategic goal: to enforce the «supremacy of the white race». And the elimination of those who think differently.
* Name known to the editor