Is The SPLC Involved In Bank Fraud?

Extremely detailed, high-quality post about the SPLC fraud case. Explains why the SPLC is almost certainly in deep trouble, but even more importantly, it describes at length how the SPLC became a de facto bank regulator, exercising quasi-governmental power over who was given… https://t.co/8gGRxWQhVW

— Blake Neff (@BlakeSNeff) May 2, 2026

A textbook prosecution of bank fraud in many respects

On April 21st, 2026, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment of the SPLC for bank fraud.

The SPLC is a storied civil rights organization. Like many non-profits, it runs a portfolio of what are sometimes called “programs” under a single roof. One of those programs is producing a data product listing individuals and entities that it considers to be involved in hate and anti-government activities. 

That data product is important financial infrastructure, and we will return to it in a moment.

The SPLC runs a private intelligence service to produce it. The SPLC has in the past paid informants, who it describes as “field sources.” Those informants are generally members of what it describes as domestic terror organizations. The existence of this program has been public knowledge for decades.

It is unlikely that any magistrate in the United States would approve a warrant to search the bluest-of-blue-chip civil rights organization's papers on the suspicion that they have created a fictitious CIA to launder money to the wife of an Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan. Are you not aware, officer, that the reason this organization is in high school history texts is they developed a novel civil litigation strategy to bankrupt the Ku Klux Klan? You will not get your warrant. You would be lucky to escape court without a citation for contempt or an order for psychiatric commitment.

Well, good thing nobody ever had to ask for that warrant.

Banks don’t need warrants to become quite alarmed when they discover that they have created an account for the Center Investigative Agency and several other sole proprietorships for the same person… and those businesses don’t receive revenue, run payroll, buy office supplies on their debit card, or rent office space. No, the only thing they do is take large deposits then transfer out hundreds of thousands of dollars directly to, Great Scott, the worst people imaginable.

Substantially every employee of the financial industry, CEO or teller or product marketing manager that they may be, is obligated to attend a yearly training on their BSA compliance responsibilities. That training customarily requires you to pass a test. If that test stipulated this scenario and then asked what the financial institution must do next, there is only one correct answer: Conduct an investigation, close the accounts at issue with very high probability, and file a Suspicious Activity Report.

We return from this flight of fancy to the indictment. Excerpting verbatim:

Starting in the 1980s, the SPLC began operating a covert network of informants who were either associated with violent extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, or who had infiltrated violent extremist groups at the SPLC's direction.

If one does not closely follow this community of practice, one could be forgiven doubting whether prosecutors are being candid here. This claim does sound farfetched. The indictment, in this paragraph, is neutrally recounting the truth. The SPLC is proud of that program, which it ran for decades. NPR’s gloss:

The indictment came shortly after the SPLC revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into its disbanded informant program to gather intelligence on extremist group activities.

Well, OK, they ran an intelligence agency. One can construct a narrative by which that makes some tactical sense. Sure.

How did they get a bank to go along with making payments to people who the SPLC has spent decades attempting to make it impossible to pay. Did they perhaps… lie to a bank?

Indictment:

To secretly funnel donated money to the Fs, individuals at the SPLC, including a person who would become the Chief Financial Officer ("Employee-1") and a person who would become the Director of the Intelligence Project ("Employee-2"), among others, opened a series of bank accounts at Bank-1 and Bank-2 in the name of various fictitious entities, including, but not limited to, the following: Center Investigative Agency ("CIA"), Fox Photography, North West Technologies ("North West Tech"), Tech Writers Group ("Tech Writers"), and Rare Books Warehouse ("Rare Books").

Oh dear, SPLC! It would be extremely bad for you if you had in fact opened accounts for businesses which do not actually exist, then used them to move funds! Perhaps you can just pray that the feds never find out? … The bank is quite likely going to find out, though. Some bank accounts have red flags. These red flags have bank accounts.