They met on Tinder, bonded over Nazi trolling, and ended up in the dock at the Old Bailey. With reporting restrictions lifted, the full story of Rex Clark and Sofija Vinogradova’s prosecution, and the neo-nazi ecosystem behind it, can now be told. In the early hours of 4 August, 2024, armed police smashed down a door of a house in a quiet street in Cheshunt and arrested a 19-year-old woman. She was bailed but a week later they returned for her and her 18-year-old boyfriend. Days after that, a bomb disposal unit descended on a house in Ilford while nearby houses were evacuated. The pair, later named as Sofija Vinogradova and Rex Clark, were self-declared national socialists steeped in Telegram channels promoting neo-Nazi terrorism, the death cult No Lives Matter, and the British-founded nazi-occult group, the Order of Nine Angles. (…) Both were charged in August 2024, days after their arrests: Clark with preparation of terrorist acts under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006, covering the acquisition and construction of IED component parts, the making and testing of petrol bombs, and the attempted acquisition of a firearm; and Vinogradova with assisting in the same offence, plus two counts of collecting terrorist information under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Charges dropped Vinogradova’s case was resolved quickly: she pleaded guilty to collecting terrorist information and to a firearms offence over the attempted gun purchase. She pleaded not guilty to assisting Clark in the preparation of terrorist acts, but that charge was later dropped. (…) Clark’s defence was that all of it, the racism, the Hitler admiration, the “wogstomper” occupation listed on his profile, was trolling, a habit he traced back to being a “Zoom bomber” during 2020 lockdowns. Mass shooting couple He encouraged Vinogradova to buy a Glock pistol (in fact, an internet scam) despite knowing she wanted it to end her own life, and once suggested the pair become “a cute mass shooting couple.” He told the court repeatedly that he said such things to impress her. No Lives Matter images from Telegram and (right) NLM’s alleged founder Both were active on far-right Telegram channels including Hope Die Last, Fishing Chat and No Lives Matter (NLM), and they ran their own small group, National Revolution Now UK, with 44 members. Vinogradova posted NLM and Order of Nine Angles (O9A) material glorifying violence under the slogan “kill the mundane,” and sprayed related graffiti around Cheshunt. Coercing children NLM, a spinoff of the group 764 whose founder Bradley Cadenhead is serving 80 years in Texas for coercing children into sexual acts and self-harm, divides the world into “predators and prey” and has inspired attacks on homeless and elderly people.
via searchlight: The Tinder Nazis: how a toxic teenage romance ended in terrorism charges
