Members of groups like Patriot Front and the Green Brigade told members of the Base they felt like the neo-Nazi terror cell was the next step. A neo-Nazi terror group under a nationwide FBI crackdown attempted to integrate members of a quickly growing but less militant far-right group, revealing the strengthening ties within the country’s broader white nationalist movement. The Base, the group under investigation by the FBI, aspired to be the decentralized, militant training arm of the entire far-right ecosystem. Despite the group’s apparent collapse following the arrest of nearly a dozen members globally this year, a series of secret recordings obtained by Motherboard from within the group showed how the Base successfully added members and leaders of several nationalist white-supremacist networks to its ranks. The recordings make it clear that the disparate actors in the extreme far right are networking and successfully building coalitions—something experts have warned could make the larger global fascist movement exceedingly dangerous. In October 2019, Chris Hood sent an email to the Base. Semi-notorious in Boston and beyond for his far-right antics, Hood proclaimed that he had a network of nearly 30 militant friends in New England ready to take the next step in their journey with the neo-Nazi cause. They were members of the group Patriot Front—a large and active U.S. white supremacist organization—and hoped to join the Base. Rinaldo Nazzaro, the Base’s leader, was elated.

via vice: How a Terror Group Recruited Budding Neo-Nazis