WHILE THE TRUMP administration carries out a mass deportation campaign against undocumented immigrants allegedly involved with “terrorist” organizations and targets foreign students with granular social media surveillance, at least one American member of a neo-Nazi fight club has connected with a group linked to a far-right Scandinavian organization listed by the United States Treasury Department as a terrorist group.
In September 2024, at least one American affiliated with the “Active Club” movement—a transnational alliance of far-right fight clubs that closely overlap with skinhead gangs and neo-fascist political movements—appears to have traveled to Borås, Sweden, to participate in a mixed-martial-arts tournament with members of other affiliated fight clubs from across Europe. Social media posts from Tvåsaxe and GYM XIV, the Swedish skinhead organizations that hosted Holmgang 2024, claim that at least one member from the Southern California Active Club was in attendance. Photographs of the tournament were also published online by Media 2 Rise, the American ACs’ media wing.
While the identity of the American (or Americans) who traveled to Sweden last fall are not publicly known, the groups they are part of are key components of the Active Club network. On October 2, Media 2 Rise posted a series of eight watermarked photographs from the Holmgang tournament, essentially putting the American Active Club’s signature of approval on the Swedish event.
