Neo-Nazis arrested on weapons charges planned to strike 'high value targets,' feds say

Two neo-Nazis arrested last week are accused of buying machine guns as part of an alleged scheme to launch a paramilitary death squad.

Aiden Cuevas, 20, and Andrew Nary, 23, each face a federal charge of conspiracy to traffic in firearms in the Northern District of Alabama.

They were arrested on Jan. 20, according to court records, after Cuevas met an FBI undercover employee and took possession of six illegal firearms with obliterated serial numbers, including three fully automatic weapons.

The arrests follow a year-long undercover operation. An affidavit alleges that Cuevas and the undercover FBI employee met in Madison County, which surrounds Huntsville, last June.

Cuevas “discussed wanting close-quarters battle and urban terrorism training with advanced training on taking out ‘high value targets,’” the affidavit says.

Cuevas and Nary allegedly met the undercover employee on Jan. 12 and paid $1,000 for four weapons, with Cuevas later paying an additional $500 for two weapons for a third man.

Cuevas has an extensive history in the white power movement as an enthusiastic promoter of 2119, a teenage neo-Nazi gang linked to hate crimes against Jews, LGBTQ+ people and others that was the subject of a 2024 Raw Storyinvestigation.

Once host of a chat on the social media platform Telegram promoting skateboarding as a means of indoctrinating alienated young white people into white supremacy, Cuevas has been on the FBI’s radar for some time. At 17, he announced on Telegram that he would be confined at an Alabama juvenile correctional facility because he was “on probation for some bulls--- charge of terroristic threat (by the FBI of course).”

Nary has maintained a lower profile, living in the Charlotte, N.C. area since at least 2019, according to court records. He disclosed in a 2023 Telegram chat reviewed by Raw Story that he worked in mold-remediation and home repair.

In 2020, Nary founded a group called Automata that promotes paramilitary training. The group’s use of skull masks signifies identification with accelerationism, a movement that calls for hastening the collapse of society to lay the groundwork for a white ethnostate.

‘We offer our final solution’

In 2023, Automata issued a propaganda message on Telegram that advised: “It is in the best interests of our people to be prepared for elements beyond our control.

“In a world of chaos, we contend for order. So, brothers, we offer our final solution.”

The “final solution” was a euphemism used by Germany’s Nazi leaders to describe the genocide against 6 million Jews.

Cuevas and Nary made initial appearances before a federal magistrate in Huntsville on Jan. 20, according to federal court records. The government requested detention, and the two men were remanded to the custody of U.S. Marshals.

Messages to Cuevas and Nary’s lawyers requesting comment went unreturned.

During the Jan. 12 meeting, according to the affidavit, Cuevas told the FBI undercover employee the firearms would be used, among other purposes, to “take out Finnegus,” who Cuevas believed was a “snitch.”

The affidavit identifies “Finnegus” as Ryan Christopher Patrick, a North Carolina man with a history of involvement in the white power movement.

Posting under the username “Finnegus,” Patrick was the administrator for the Telegram chat, “Fascher Magazine,” that Cuevas used to promote national socialism through skateboarding culture.

In 2023, Patrick participated in a protest against a drag show held at a yoga studio in Sanford, N.C., alongside Jarrett William Smith, who had served a federal prison sentence for distributing bomb-making instructions on the internet.

Patrick, who wore a skull mask, confirmed his protest participation to Raw Story at the time.

Cuevas appears to blame Patrick for the legal troubles of Kai Nix, a former soldier arrested in August 2024.

Nix was charged with falsely stating on a security clearance application to join the U.S. Army that “he had never been a member of a group dedicated to the use of force to overthrow the United States government,” dealing in firearms without a license, and knowingly possessing and selling a stolen firearm.

A federal magistrate determined that Nix could be released to his mother’s custody while awaiting trial.

In a comment on a Telegram chat last June, reviewed by Raw Story, Cuevas told a fellow white nationalist: “Kai Nix is your enemy. He’s snitching on the whole of Patriot Front. // Brotha was facing 70 years and got sent home.”

Last September, Nix pleaded guilty to knowingly possessing and selling a stolen firearm. He is scheduled for sentencing next month. During his plea hearing, a federal prosecutor told the court Nix communicated with a confidential human source about stolen firearms in December 2023. The FBI then set up a controlled buy, and ascertained that Nix sold to the confidential human source a pistol stolen from a retired sheriff’s deputy.

Patrick could not be reached for comment.

More names

The affidavit supporting charges against Cuevas and Nary includes the names of two other men with documented histories of white supremacist activity.

The government alleges Cuevas told the FBI undercover employee last month that the guns would be used by himself, Nary and Logan Gulbranson.

Earlier this month, according to the government, Cuevas delivered $500 to the undercover employee, then later took possession of two weapons intended for Gulbranson.

As a 16-year-old, in January 2023, Gulbranson unfurled a swastika flag and yelled racial slurs outside a drag show in Cookeville, Tenn. Later that year, he was part of a group of neo-Nazis who escorted Gabrielle Hanson, a mayoral candidate in Franklin, Tenn. to a candidate forum.

It is not clear whether Gulbranson, now 19, is set to face weapons trafficking charges with Cuevas and Nary. He could not be reached for comment.

The affidavit also states that Cuevas and a fourth man, Aidan Stamper, met with the FBI undercover employee in Alabama last July, and asked for paramilitary training. During the meeting, according to the affidavit, Stamper told the undercover employee he had bought an AR-15 off the street and converted it to a fully automatic firearm.

It is unclear whether Stamper could face charges. He could not be reached for comment.

Stamper was reportedly arrested in May 2024 for allegedly spray-painting racist and antisemitic slurs and neo-Nazi symbols on homes in Sylvan Park, in Nashville, Tenn. a year earlier.

Since Stamper was a juvenile at the time of the alleged vandalism, he was not named when Nashville Metro Police announced charges of criminal conspiracy, trespassing, civil rights intimidation and theft. Scoop Nashville identified him, using local jail records.

Cuevas, Gulbranson and Stamper were all arrested in January 2025, shortly after their network was infiltrated by the FBI, for breaking into an industrial park in north-east Mississippi that houses a nuclear power plant. The three men were charged with felony trespassing and burglary.

‘Bond, train, and fight for our race’

The three men were also core members of a neo-Nazi group called the North ’Bama Brigade. The group’s Telegram channel promoted grievances against immigrants and unhoused people, while showing images depicting LGBTQ+ and Israeli flags being trampled.

North ’Bama Brigade has held joint gatherings with Southern Sons, a neo-Nazi group whose members were hit with felony conspiracy charges last week, for allegedly carrying out hate crimes targeting Jews and LGBTQ+ people.

According to messages cross-posted by the two groups on Telegram, Southern Sons hosted North ’Bama Brigade in Atlanta in June 2024, providing an “opportunity to bond, train, and fight for our race.” The two groups reconvened two months later for “an extensive wilderness trip into Tennessee for the purpose of bonding, training and swimming activities.”

The day after Cuevas and Nary’s arrest in Alabama, David William Fair, the leader of Southern Sons, and a second member, Martin Harvey, were arrested in South Carolina.

On the same day, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police arrested five Southern Sons members in North Carolina, while Ryan Gower, a Southern Sons member who participated in the North ’Bama Brigade’s Telegram chat, was arrested in Florida.

It is unclear if the federal case in Alabama and the state case in North Carolina are linked.