MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA — The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted on federal fraud charges on April 21, 2026, in federal court in Montgomery, Alabama. The Justice Department charged the organization with wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering over a program that paid informants to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups.

The Justice Department alleges that the SPLC improperly raised millions of dollars to fund the informant program. Prosecutors allege the SPLC made payments of at least $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to people affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, the United Klans of America, the National Socialist Party of America and other extremist groups.

"The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred," Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said. He said the money was passed from the SPLC through two different bank accounts before being loaded onto prepaid cards to give to members of extremist groups. Blanche said in a press statement that the extremist groups also included the National Socialist Movement and the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, and that the SPLC never disclosed details of the informant program to donors.

According to the indictment, at least nine unnamed informants were paid by the SPLC through a secret program that began in the 1980s. The indictment says the informants were known within the organization as field sources or "the Fs." One informant was paid more than $1 million between 2014 and 2023 while affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Alliance, and another was the Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America, the indictment says. The SPLC previously revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into the program and said it was used to monitor threats of violence, with information often shared with local and federal law enforcement.

"We will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work," Chief Executive Officer Bryan Fair said. "There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives," he added.

The SPLC, based in Montgomery, was founded in 1971 and has used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. House Republicans hosted a hearing on the organization in December.