America's FBI thinks a neo-Nazi on the run may have an Irish connection, Seán O'Driscoll reports from New York
The leading funder of US white supremacist groups is believed to be hiding in Ireland, the FBI has said. The bureau of investigation in Seattle, Washington state, uncovered a forwarding address in Beresford Place, Dublin for multimillionaire Vincent Bertollini, who has spent millions of dollars promoting neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.
The FBI and police in Sandpoint, Idaho have just renewed their interest in Bertollini after a finance company foreclosed a home he purchased for a neo-Nazi group, signifying that Bertollini is determined to remain undetected.
He fled his home in Idaho in 2001 while awaiting sentencing on his third drink-driving offence, for which he was due to be imprisoned.
Bertollini (56) made millions of dollars during the Silicon Valley tech boom in the 1990s, along with his business partner and fellow white supremacist, Carl E Story, and used it to fund racist groups.
The pair also set up their own neo-Nazi church, called the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger and regularly visited the Aryan Nations headquarters in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Story and Bertollini believe that white Anglo-Saxons are the chosen people described in the Bible, that Jews are the product of a sexual union between Eve and Satan, and that non-whites are soul-less subhumans.
The activities of Bertollini and Story have been monitored by the Anti-Defamation League, a US-based organisation that campaigns against anti-Semitism and other forms of race hate. According to the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger, which the pair produce, "blacks, orientals and other races", unlike "Aryans", do not have souls. These "pre-Adamic" people intermarried with the Jews, producing "a mongrel, hybrid, a non-race".
Story and Bertollini believe that America has become a "dictatorship," enslaved to "Jewish communism".
They predict that there will be a third World War, followed by the migration of the "white race" from America to Israel.
Eventually, "The War of All Wars!" between the "white" race and the Jewish, Satanic "non-race" will lead to "Armageddon", or a fourth World War, resulting in the victory of the "white" race and the unending reign of Jesus Christ over his "white" people.
Bertollini is described as 1.8m (6ft) tall, weighing 75kg with brown hair and blue eyes. The FBI gave The Irish Times a previously unpublished surveillance photograph of Bertollini attending a neo-Nazi rally in northern Idaho in the hope that someone in Ireland might recognise him.
Bertollini was the biggest funder of the Aryan Nations neo-Nazi group and regularly attended its rallies. He purchased a home in Idaho for the group, which is now being foreclosed, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars sending out white supremacist mailing and setting up racist websites.
FBI agent Norm Brown, a supervisor at the anti-terrorism taskforce in Seattle, Washington, said that Ireland was the "best possibility" for finding Bertollini.
"He just disappeared but with the forwarding address, it looks like Ireland is our best chance but he could have moved on," he said.
Norm Gissel, an attorney in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and member of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, said that Bertollini fled Idaho after telling fellow white supremacists that "the Jews" were determined to put him away.
"He has proved to be a very consistent funder of hate groups and he has poured a lot of money into the Aryan Nations," he said.
Bertollini was close to Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler until Butler's death in 2003.
In 2000, a mother and son who were beaten up by security guards outside the group's headquarters won a $6.3 million (€5.1 million) judgment against Aryan Nations and the group was forced to sell its property.
Bertollini purchased a new headquarters for the group in nearby Sandpoint, where his drink driving charges are still outstanding.
Bertollini is notorious in Sandpoint for mass mailing racist and neo-Nazi literature in the area. He once mailed out 9,000 video-tape interviews with Butler.
Another mass mailing included a "genealogy chart" showing how white Christians were descendants of Adam and Eve, while Jews were descendants of Eve and Satan.
A local residents group organised a campaign to mail back the hate literature to Bertollini's home.
He is also known for running for Sandpoint mayor as a write-in candidate and received less than 40 votes.