A grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama has returned an 11-count indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit organisation founded in 1971 with the stated goal of monitoring and fighting hate groups across the United States (US). The charges include wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The SPLC, long regarded as a key player in the fight against racism, is now accused of manufacturing racism to justify its own existence.

The grand jury found probable cause to charge the SPLC under these counts. This step follows an extensive investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service, into the SPLC’s alleged misuse of donor funds between 2014 and 2023, with the indictment asserting that the organisation engaged in fraudulent activity under the guise of fighting extremism.

According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the SPLC used money it solicited for its anti-extremism programs for purposes that directly contradicted its stated mission. The indictment details how the SPLC secretly funnelled more than $3 million to individuals linked to violent extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialist Movement, and the American Nazi Party. These payments were allegedly made to individuals described as informants or "field sources" who infiltrated these groups on the SPLC's behalf.

In a statement regarding the indictment, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the SPLC of “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.” The DOJ claims that the SPLC's activities were not only misleading to donors but also illegal, as the organisation misrepresented the intended use of the funds it raised.

In one example, the indictment identifies F‑37 (a placeholder name used in the court filing in place of the person’s real identity) as a member of the leadership group behind the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. That event was a white supremacist gathering that drew neo‑Nazis, white nationalists, Klansmen, and other far‑right groups to protest the removal of a Confederate statue and quickly turned violent, resulting in at least one death and dozens of injuries as far‑right demonstrators clashed with counter‑protesters. The rally became a flashpoint in national debates in the US about racial violence and extremism, with widespread media coverage and political controversy in its aftermath.

According to the indictment, this individual was paid more than $270 000 over several years and allegedly “made racist posts under SPLC’s direction” and helped to “co-ordinate transportation for rally attendees.”

Another example highlighted in the indictment is F‑9, described as a veteran member of the National Alliance, a neo‑Nazi, white supremacist political organisation founded by William Luther Pierce (the author of the infamous The Turner Diaries, an anti-Semitic and racist novel which described a hypothetical future takeover of the US by neo-Nazis) in 1974. The National Alliance was once one of the most significant neo‑Nazi groups in the United States, advocating for white supremacy and an all‑white homeland, producing literature and media explicitly rooted in racist ideology.

According to the court filing, this individual received more than $1 million through a network of fictitious companies linked to the SPLC over several years. That payment, along with others to people tied to extremist groups, is central to the government’s fraud allegations that SPLC misled donors about how donated funds would be used.

The indictment details how the SPLC allegedly created fictitious companies which were designed solely to disguise the flow of funds to extremist groups. SPLC employees are accused of “using these companies to create and maintain false invoices” and “falsely represented” that payments were for legitimate services, when in fact, the money was used to support individuals with direct ties to hate groups.