Canadian clubs, American fascists join forces south of border, CBC investigation finds
Members of Canada’s largest white nationalist group trained this spring with their US counterparts south of the border and met with the founder of a global movement of anti-fascist clubs, a CBC investigative investigation has found.
One expert called it “a very important signal” of closer cooperation between white supremacist groups on both sides of the border.
The blurred-faced wiretapping shows members of Second Sons Canada standing with one CBC identified as Robert Rundo, the American neo-Nazi who founded the “working class” movement. Another post shows them training and meeting with active club teams in Texas and South Carolina in late March.
“It’s very important that we see Canadians crossing the border,” said Steven Rai, senior research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a UK-based think tank dedicated to studying tyranny, hatred and extremism.
“This shows that this problem of white supremacy is not unique to Canada and that white supremacy groups in Canada do not operate within geographic silos.”
Several US active clubs have sent members to Canada to coordinate with the Hamilton-based group Nationalist-13which is clearly neo-Nazi. But this is the first time Second Sons Canada has shared photos of its members’ trip to the US since then was established in 2024.
‘There is fun in fascism,’ said Rundo
Based on publicly available Telegram posts, members of Second Sons met with Robert Rundo in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas. Despite masquerading as a “nationalist men’s club,” the meeting with Rundo is the latest link between Second Sons Canada and the club’s white supremacist movement.
In 2024, Rundo was sentenced to two years in prison for rioting at political events in California. He and members of his gang beat several people, with Rundo repeatedly punching one person, according to a Release of the US prosecutor. Rundo was later seen in videos “celebrating the attack they had made.”
Although his prison time was considered already served due to the length of his pre-sentence detention, he was re-sentenced in December 2024 to two years of supervised release. Rundo was recently featured in a 60 Minutes interview from CBS News in which he identified his organization as “ultra-nationalists, far-right fascists,” and said “there is fun in fascism.”
Michael Colborne, a reporter for the open-source investigative media Bellingcat, said Rundo is the “strategic or visionary subject” of an active club organization, focused on “the field, fashion and fighting to try to lure young men to the right.”
CBC News identified Rundo in a photo posted to Telegram by the Lone Star Active Club. In the photo, three men stand wearing Second Sons Canada logo shirts.
Rundo appears to be the man in the middle of the picture. The watch worn by the man in the photo is almost identical to the one worn by Rundo in other videos and photos; he always wears it on his right hand. Additionally, the dim area on the man’s elbow matches Rundo’s distinctive Sonnenrad tattoo – a symbol often used by neo-Nazis.
Rundo has appeared in an iconic location before: he can be seen in many pieces of media published by the Lone Star Active Club. His facial features, despite being blurred, also match Rundo’s.
“When I first saw this picture, I laughed because, despite the blurring of it, I knew it was Rundo right away,” Bellingcat’s Colborne said. He said it is not clear why Rundo will fade away since he is a well-known person in the white group.
In February, Rundo appeared on a podcast hosted by Alex Vriend, vice president of Second Sons Canada, where Vriend speculated about future collaborations between Canadian and US bands.
“I hope to find our boys in one of the American events,” said Vriend.
Under the terms of his parole, Rundo must not meet with members of the Rise Above Movement, his defunct organization.
CBC News reached out to Rundo to ask about his connection to Lone Star, meeting with members of Second Sons Canada and how his activities relate to the terms of his supervised release. He did not directly respond to CBC’s questions.
Members of Second Sons met Rundo at an area often used by members of the Lone Star Active Club, based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. CBC News split the joint operations at a commercial gym in the area and a private facility operated by Lone Star. The private gym was first organized by Texas Observer.
American Muscle event
According to the Telegram post, members of the two groups then attended an event in South Carolina called American Muscle 2, a martial arts tournament that brings together a number of active clubs.
American Muscle 2 is organized by the Patriot Front, one of the most notorious white groups in the US In a letter describing the event, the Patriot Front said it is “dedicated to the restoration of the nation.” On its website, the Patriot Front says, “Our nation is ethnically European.”
Rai, of ISD, said wrestling tournaments have become a common way for white groups to gather to “strengthen real-world bonds” and build “permanent infrastructure” for the broader movement.
Second Sons Canada is a growing Canadian ‘national’ men’s club, but its official posts hide pro-Nazi, racist and violent statements made by its leaders. The CBC’s virtual investigations unit used AI tools and manual verification to uncover the extreme views of Second Son leaders in personal podcasts and live streams, revealing a deliberate strategy to recruit Canadians.
“It is possible that the level of tactics that are happening in these events is high, as well as the depth of thoughts on how to move the movement forward,” he said.
The event was held at a business in Travelers Rest, SC, called Dixie Republic. CBC News confirmed this by geolocating footage published by the Patriot Front in promoting the event after it happened.
Dixie Republic advertises itself as “the largest department store in the Confederate South.” The store did not respond to multiple requests for comment from CBC News.
A number of active clubs from across the United States attended the event, including the Great Lakes Active Club of Michigan, which also wrote about meeting with Second Sons Canada.
CBC News has reached out to Second Sons Canada, the Lone Star Active Club and the Great Lakes Active Club for comment. No one answered.
“This is a broad, international gathering of like-minded people,” Rai said. “They want to establish a country for whites only.”
Colborne said active club groups in the United States seem to be having difficulty growing in numbers, but he was still concerned about expansion.
“What I worry about with every active club organization, and especially in the US, is not the increase, or the great increase, of their positions and employment, but …
Rai said these groups “ultimately want to undermine democracy and replace Canadian values with a strict fascist definition of the society they want to achieve.”
