The FBI this week arrested a southwest Minnesota man described as an armed member of a neo-Nazi extremist group who professed to make his own firearms and explosives.
FBI arrests Redwood Falls man alleged to belong to ‘Aryan Freedom Network’ Nazi group
Before his arrest for illegally possessing ammunition, Andrew David Munsinger allegedly plotted to build unserialized firearms and talked about his “goals to support the white race.”
The Minnesota Star Tribune
February 8, 2024 at 5:23PM
Federal charges unsealed Wednesday against Andrew David Munsinger, 40, of Redwood Falls, detail a yearlong FBI probe involving multiple paid informants and trips around the country to participate in weapons training and other events on behalf of the Aryan Freedom Network (AFN), a Texas-based Nazi group which purportedly has chapters in 25 states.
Introducing himself as “Thor” to other AFN members, Munsinger expressed a hatred of Jews and Black people and at one point alluded to desires to “conduct nefarious activity” in Minneapolis’ George Floyd Square, according to charges.
In the months leading up to his arrest this week on charges of illegally possessing ammunition as a felon, Munsinger plotted to trade one informant a homemade AR-15 rifle for a handgun that could be modified to fire fully automatic and penetrate body armor.
According to a sworn affidavit from an FBI special agent on the Minneapolis division’s joint terrorism task force, Munsinger backed down from the plan in December after believing he was being surveilled by law enforcement.
Those suspicions were well-founded. A 32-page federal criminal complaint describes extensive surveillance of Munsinger that included secretly recorded conversations at firing ranges in Redwood County, weapons trainings in Indiana and AFN functions such as an October 2023 bash called “Aryan Fest” in which attendees crafted large wooden swastikas to be burned in ceremony.
Though Munsinger didn’t go through with the gun trade, FBI agents still arrested him this week on charges of illegally possessing ammunition. He has prior convictions for first-degree methamphetamine possession and third-degree sale of narcotics, both of which barred him from possessing firearms or ammunition. He billed himself as a “huge gun guy” who owned “a few ARs and handguns” and said he had access to a machine shop to make firearm parts without serial numbers.
Munsinger expressed particular excitement for firearms training, according to the charges.
Munsinger made his first federal court appearance Wednesday in St. Paul, where a magistrate judge ordered him to remain temporarily detained ahead of a Feb. 12 hearing and preliminary examination. He is being held at the Sherburne County jail in Elk River. Katherian Roe, the federal defender for Minnesota, said Thursday that her office hadn’t yet assigned an attorney for Munsinger “but hope to soon.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Texas-based AFN is a national white supremacist organization with chapters around the country. It describes itself on its website as “committed to the interests, ideas, security and cultural values of the White Race” and is “determined to protect our Race from going into extinction” within a “society oriented to the wishes of Replacing Whites.”
AFN faithful believe in the creation of an “autonomous White Aryan European homeland in North America” and the end of nonwhite immigration to Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The group uses the “Totenkopf” logo, a skull and crossbones image adopted during the Nazi era by the Death’s Head Formation.
According to the charges, an informant reached out to the bureau in February 2023 after Munsinger introduced himself at a meet and greet for new AFN members.
Munsinger later discussed an affinity for “accelerationist attacks.” According to the FBI, accelerationism holds that the existing state of society is irreparable and that the only solution is destruction or collapse of the current order of society and the U.S. government to form a subsequent reconstruction of society in a new form. To achieve this, “accelerationists” promote carrying out acts of violence to accelerate the collapse of the “system.”
Speaking earlier to a second informant, Munsinger said that he built guns at a friend’s machine shop and discussed “his goals to advance the white race,” according to charges.
The validity of Munsinger’s many claims to the informants he believed were fellow AFN devotees is unclear, but he often spun dramatic tales of violent intent. At one point, according to the FBI agent’s affidavit, Munsinger claimed to have visited the homes of a prosecutor and his ex-wife’s boyfriend and pointed guns at them as they lay sleeping, but decided not to pull the trigger.
Munsinger said he made his own Tannerite, a brand of binary explosive target used for firearms practice, as well as improvised explosive devices. He discussed creating surveillance drones to do 3-D mapping while musing that he could eventually build drones capable of firing munitions.
Eventually, Munsinger said, he wanted to acquire land in northern Minnesota to create a tactical shooting area. He also boasted that no one would “screw with him during drug deals.”
“Never really had anybody try and take something from me like that because I think you know when people know me for a short period of time, they realize this dude, there is no telling how far he will go,” Munsinger said, according to the complaint.
Republicans across the country benefited from favorable tailwinds as President-elect Donald Trump resoundingly defeated Democrat Kamala Harris. But that wasn’t the whole story in Minnesota.
