The leader of a bloodthirsty neo-Nazi group based in Southern California was finally arrested inside a Romanian gym, three years after he went on the run after being accused of various charges, including assaulting a police officer. police.
Robert Rundo, 33, was arrested in Bucharest on March 29 by special police forces when an informant contacted the authorities.
Rundo is the founder of a group called RAM, which stands for Rise Above Movement. In addition to racist activities, its members are also passionate MMA practitioners. The group has between 20 and 50 members.
Officials in Romania said Rundo was carrying documents identifying him as Robert Lazar Pavic when he was arrested. It is not known how long he has been in the Eastern European country.
Following the arrest, US authorities issued an extradition request to their Romanian counterparts. Between 2016 and 2018, Rundo is believed to have been ubiquitous at various political rallies, often physically clashing with enemies and law enforcement.
Rise Above Movement founder Robert Rundo, 28, pictured inside a Romanian gym shortly after his arrest.
Rundo was photographed being dragged out of a Romanian gym on Wednesday.
Rundo will face a hearing on April 25. Authorities in Europe accuse him of spreading the ideology of white supremacy in countries including Serbia, Bulgaria and Hungary, the Romanian news station reports. Digi24.
“The suspect is said to be one of the founders of an organization supporting white supremacist ideology, which has publicly portrayed itself as a group ready to fight, campaigning for a new white supremacist nationalist movement and identity,” it said. a statement from police said, according to Radio Free Europe.
RAM members attended the infamous 2017 Charlottesville Unite The Right rally that led to the death of Heather Heyer.
After the initial charges against him were dismissed in 2019, Rundo is believed to have left the United States.
A federal judge in Los Angeles dismissed the charges on the grounds that the 1968 Riot Act was unconstitutional.
Judge Cormac Carney said someone could be convicted under the law simply for texting friends about meeting at a political rally, adding that even those with a “hateful and toxic ideology” are protected by the First Amendment.
He had been indicted on charges of “traveling to political rallies in California, where they violently attacked counter-protesters, journalists and a police officer,” the Justice Department said in a press release at the time.
Rundo photographed being detained in Berkeley, California in 2017
The videos showed Rundo beating counter-protesters in Huntington Beach and a police officer in Berkeley, according to an FBI affidavit.
Prosecutors described RAM as “a militant group ready for combat of a new nationalist white supremacist and identity movement.”
In January 2023, Rundo was indicted again, leading to his recent arrest.
Radio Free Europe reports that in a September 2020 interview on a neo-Nazi podcast, Rundo said he left the US due to what he called “harassment” by authorities.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, members of the Rise Above Movement believe they are fighting a “modern world” corrupted by the “destructive cultural influences” of liberals, Jews, Muslims, and non-white immigrants.
Members refer to themselves as the mixed martial arts club of the ‘alt-right’ fringe movement, a loose mix of neo-Nazis, white nationalists and other far-right extremists.
The leader of a Southern California white supremacist group and three other members were arrested weeks after indictments by other members of the group for allegedly inciting riots in Charlottesville, pictured.
A woman, Heather Heyer, was killed when a car struck a group of protesters protesting against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“They operate very much like a street fight club,” Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said earlier this month. The group has roots in the racist skinhead movement in Southern California, Segal said.
In August 2017, Rundo and his henchmen headed to the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville with their hands bandaged, ‘ready for street battle,’ US Attorney Thomas Cullen said at a news conference announcing the charges in 2018.
Hundreds of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville in part to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
The clashes broke out on August 11 when a crowd of white nationalists marching across the University of Virginia campus carrying torches and chanting racist slogans were met by a small group of counter-protesters.
The next day, more violence broke out between counter-protesters and those attending the ‘Unite the Right’ rally, which was believed to be the largest gathering of white nationalists in at least a decade.
The street fight broke out before the scheduled event could begin and went on for nearly an hour in full view of police until authorities forced the crowd to disperse.
After authorities forced the demonstration to break up on August 12, Heyer, 32, was killed when a car struck a crowd of counter-protesters.
The death toll rose to three when a state police helicopter that had been monitoring the event crashed, killing two soldiers.