FBI Investigating Antifa for Allegedly Trying To Work with Mexican Cartels To Attack Americans - Report
When the ludicrously misnamed “antifa” group — self-proclaimed anti-fascists who hypocritically embrace fascist tactics — first emerged on the scene as troublemakers in 2016/2017, they were held up as heroes by the left.
On the center and right of the ideological spectrum, however, many suggested the violent group should be labeled as a domestic terror organization.
The violent antifa protesters seemed to drop below the radar of media attention in 2018. However, a new report just emerged that alleges that the group was quietly at work making preparations to re-emerge on the scene with a bang, so to speak, with an armed attack against U.S. Border Patrol and immigration officials at the southern border.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that it obtained a copy of an FBI document detailing an alleged plot discovered in December 2018 between antifa operatives and an associate of a Mexican drug cartel.
The plot involved an effort to obtain firearms from the cartel to be used in an armed attack and “rebellion” at the border against U.S. personnel.
Unnamed law enforcement officials confirmed to the media outlet that an investigation into the matter remained ongoing and that copies of the “sensitive” but unclassified FBI report had been circulated to a number of other federal agencies in both the U.S. and Mexico, including the Central Intelligence Agency, Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, National Security Administration and others.
The report provided details on how antifa activists sought to purchase firearms from a “Mexico-based cartel associate known as Cobra Commander.” Those weapons would then be used to “stage an armed rebellion at the border,” part of a broader plan “to disrupt U.S. law enforcement and military security operations at the US/Mexican border.”
The alleged cartel associate known as “Cobra Commander” has been identified as Ivan Riebeling, a resident of Tijuana, Mexico, with several known aliases and a lengthy criminal record in both Mexico and the U.S.
Riebeling spoke with the Union-Tribune and denied that he was involved in any sort of alleged plot or that he was a member of a Mexican cartel, though he did admit to having several associates that were members of a cartel.
Reibeling is the international coordinator of Human Rights Visitors of the New World Order. He was exposed in 2018 for making threats against a journalist, Odilón García, for exposing his criminal history. (23) https://t.co/BkBXwmtfLo
— Joshua Philipp (@JoshJPhilipp) April 30, 2019
The FBI report, however, suggested that Riebeling was linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and his criminal record includes convictions on drug and weapons charges, a conviction in the U.S. on kidnapping and robbery charges, and at least two arrests in Mexico for assaulting police officers.
The report also named American activist Evan Duke, who was alleged to have reached out to Riebeling as part of the plot to obtain cartel weaponry.
The report stated that Duke and the antifa activists “were encouraged to bring personally owned weapons to the border and the group also intended to purchase weapons from a Mexico-based cartel associate known as Cobra Commander, AKA the Mexican Rambo, and smuggle the weapons into the United States.”
Duke, however, denied any involvement in the plot, claiming that he had been warned ahead of time about Riebeling. He said he specifically took precautions to avoid associating with him while in Tijuana to provide aid and assistance to a migrant caravan camped out near the border.
He also took issue with the allegations that he and his fellow activists intended to purchase weapons illegally from the cartel, when it would presumably be easier for them to obtain weapons legally in the U.S.
Duke claims to have been stopped and questioned by U.S. law enforcement officials at the border, though he was ultimately released.
The FBI report alleged that Duke and Riebeling worked together to help establish camps to provide training for “community defense militias, also known as autodensas,” that would be composed of activists and migrants who would lead an assault against U.S. border agents.
“Organizers planned for the camps to be used as staging platforms from which five person units would form to train anarchists in fighting, combat, and conducting reconnaissance,” the report stated, “and then launch to disrupt U.S. government operations along the border.”
The Union-Tribune noted that the document contained only allegations and that no arrests have been made, or at least publicized, in relation to the alleged plot.
The names of Duke and Riebeling, along with many other names that have not been released, were compiled as part of a federal investigation begun in 2018 into American activists, attorneys and journalists who traveled to Mexico to provide aid and assistance to the series of migrant caravans coming in waves to the border region.
There was a specific focus on any involvement in the violent incidents in November and January that saw Border Patrol agents forced to use tear gas against masses of migrants attempting to rush across the border in large groups.
The alleged plot between antifa and the purported cartel associate was discovered as part of the initial investigation and spun off into its own separate file.
The clear point to be derived from all of this is that antifa may have largely gone quiet in recent months, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t still been plotting to commit future violence against American citizens and law enforcement officials.
This suggests, yet again, that they should be considered a threat to the U.S. homeland and labeled a domestic terror organization.
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