SPLC Indicted for Fraud and Money Laundering

By | 2026

WASHINGTON, D.C. April 24 (C-Fam) The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been indicted on federal fraud charges, including money laundering.  According to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the organization had been secretly paying leaders of the very “hate” groups it was publicly tracking: “paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

The SPLC had positioned itself as a reliable expert on organizations promoting hatred and extremism, maintaining lists of “SPLC-designated hate groups” that were cited by journalists and even by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

However, when the SPLC started tracking “anti-LGBT hate groups,” their lists began to mix mainstream social conservative organizations like the Family Research Council alongside racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

C-Fam, the publisher of the Friday Fax, found itself on the SPLC list in 2013, after informing the government of Belize, which was facing pressure to decriminalize sodomy, that there was no international legal obligation for them to do so. For accurately expressing a legal fact, C-Fam was labeled as a “hate group” by the SPLC.

In recent years, the SPLC’s profile has fallen, both in terms of its reputation and its finances.  In 2024, the organization laid off a quarter of its employees, and last year, the FBI officially cut ties with the group.

Because it targeted mainstream conservative organizations, the SPLC’s credibility as an arbiter of “hate” has been widely devalued. A 2016 analysis by the leftist Media Matters for America found that leading newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post cited the SPLC’s “designations” very infrequently when discussing LGBTQ issues, preferring to simply refer to groups as “conservative.” Instead, the newspapers cited the SPLC’s hate group labels mainly when discussing white supremacist groups.

In 2018, the Washington Post—by no means a conservative-leaning outlet—published an article questioning whether the SPLC was assessing “hate” fairly. “For decades, the hate list was a golden seal of disapproval” and considered to be nonpartisan, the article notes.  That goodwill declined with the SPLC’s increased targeting of groups expressing conservative views on sexuality, immigration, and other issues.

Perhaps ironically, the current federal charges against the SPLC fall squarely within its original core area of expertise: groups stoking racial conflict. The indictment claims that the SPLC funneled over $3 million to people associated with the Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialist Party of America (also known as the American Nazi Party), the Aryan Nations Motorcycle Club, and others. The federal charges include wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money. The SPLC has vowed to defend itself, arguing that its informant program saved lives.

The SPLC’s “hate group” designation very nearly cost lives in 2012, when a gunman entered the headquarters of the Family Research Council and opened fire, intending to kill as many employees as he could. The building manager was able to subdue the shooter, Floyd Lee Corkins, despite being wounded in the assault. Corkins chose to target the conservative organization after finding it listed on the SPLC’s “hate list.” Had he been successful in his attack, Corkins intended to target other, similarly-designated, groups.

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