exclusive
Right-wing extremists on Telegram openly and sometimes with real names call for people to support them with donations. A new report shows: Classic bank accounts and payment service providers are their first choice. As the BR If you inquired there, accounts were closed.
Michael looks into the camera and gets straight to the point: He is one of the activists who was “enjoyed by a house search” that morning, says the young man. Officials confiscated “valuable and important technology.” That’s why he’s now asking for donations. The video, which was distributed on the Telegram messenger service at the end of August, shows an account at a bank based in Germany. It belongs to the Identitarian Movement – a right-wing extremist organization that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) is focusing on.
Investigators, authorities and politicians are driven by this form of financial self-promotion: How can the state deprive right-wing extremists of their financial basis? The house search goes back to an action by right-wing extremists at the beginning of February in front of an asylum center in Peutenhausen, Bavaria, northeast of Augsburg. Masked people had positioned themselves there with pyrotechnics and a xenophobic banner. Plus cameras to document their actions. Since then, investigations into allegations of sedition have been ongoing.
Right-wing networks are “drying out” financially
Financially “drying out” right-wing extremist groups – that is the declared goal of Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. The SPD politician put this first in her “Action plan against right-wing extremism” published in March 2022. “Because without funding there is no propaganda and no activities to radicalize and recruit people,” said Faeser when she presented the plan to the heads of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Criminal Police Office. The measures in the action plan should be implemented quickly, according to internal documents from the Ministry of the Interior BRresearch available.
But there are doubts about its effectiveness: “In practice, we have to say: We haven’t noticed that much has changed so far,” says Miro Dittrich from the “Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy” (CeMAS). The researchers at the non-profit organization based in Berlin systematically monitor right-wing extremist activities.
1.3 million Telegram messages evaluated
For a report, CeMAS evaluated 1.3 million messages from more than 400 German-language Telegram channels and examined how right-wing extremists solicit donations there. The report that dem Bavarian radio was previously available and is due to be published today. It covers the period from September 2016 to May 2023. The analysis shows: Right-wing extremists openly advertise for donations using their real names. They use a variety of methods, such as the payment service provider PayPal, cryptocurrencies, crowdfunding or donations via live streaming platforms.
But the classic bank account is still the most important means for right-wing extremists to solicit donations. “There are individual right-wing extremist actors whose bank accounts have been closed, but in general this represents a very safe and simple form of financing,” says Dittrich from CeMAS.
Closed PayPal accounts of right-wing extremists after BR inquiry
BRReporters queried 109 IBANs and 38 PayPal accounts that right-wing extremists use to solicit donations from the respective banks at home and abroad as well as from the US payment service provider. He pointed out BR on the backgrounds of the account and account holders, for example on reports from constitutional protection authorities.
PayPal deactivated ten accounts by the time of going to press, including several associated with the Identitarian Movement. On BR-A PayPal spokeswoman said the other accounts were still being checked internally and in a multi-stage process. Individual banks also responded BR Accounts queried were terminated, in some cases even before the query was made. The majority of financial institutions invoked banking secrecy and did not provide any information about individual accounts.
Miro Dittrich from CeMAS demands: If financial service providers close accounts after simple press inquiries, the authorities could also write such emails to banks: “If the plan is to dry up right-wing extremist financial flows, the security authorities are clearly in demand here.”
High legal hurdles
The research suggests that neither the Ministry of the Interior nor the Office for the Protection of the Constitution are influencing payment service providers to close specific accounts. Because there is no legal basis for this. The ministry refers to the Constitutional Protection Act. Accordingly, the intelligence service is only allowed to ask banks for information about individual accounts, such as account balances or transfers. The hurdles for this are high: According to the law, there must be facts that justify the assumption that “serious dangers” are imminent. So: extremism alone is not enough, more is needed.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior, for its part, writes that the drying up of financial flows decided in the action plan against right-wing extremism will be implemented by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. He has “significantly expanded” the resources and capabilities in the area of financial investigations over the past year and a half. However, the authorities do not point to any concrete successes.
More skills for Defense of Constitution?
MPs still see room for maneuver in draining the finances of the extreme right. The left-wing politician Clara Bünger said this BR: “We don’t see any drying up of the financial flows of right-wing extremist structures.” The Interior Minister has “no plan” as to how she wants to do this. The security authorities would have to consistently use all the instruments that are already available to them – similar to organized crime.
The SPD interior expert Sebastian Fiedler, on the other hand, called for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to be given more authority to analyze the finances of extremists. The fact that the domestic intelligence service has so far only been able to look at accounts in the event of a “concrete danger” and terrorist financing is not enough.
Bundestag member Konstantin von Notz (Greens), chairman of the parliamentary control committee responsible for monitoring the intelligence services, said this BR, the coalition is working on a “major reform of intelligence law.” There is an openness in parliament to “look at this area and, if necessary, tighten it up legally,” said von Notz.