White supremacists are encouraging members to infect Jews with coronavirus: FBI

The FBI is warning that white supremacists have started encouraging their followers to contract COVID-19 and then intentionally spread it to police officers and Jews.

ABC News reports that the FBI's New York office sent out an alert recently that warned neo-Nazi groups are pushing members to spread the virus though "bodily fluids and personal interactions" to their perceived enemies.

"The FBI alert, which went out on Thursday, told local police agencies that extremists want their followers to try to use spray bottles to spread bodily fluids to cops on the street," ABC News reports. "The extremists are also directing followers to spread the disease to Jews by going "any place they may be congregated, to include markets, political offices, businesses and places of worship."

Michael Masters, the head of Secure Communities Network that coordinates security for synagogues, tells ABC News that neo-Nazis have been claiming that Jews are responsible for the spread of the virus in the United States.

"From pushing the idea that Jews created the coronavirus virus to sell vaccines to encouraging infected followers to try to spread the illness to the Jewish community and law enforcement, as the coronavirus has spread, we have observed how white-supremacists, neo-Nazis and others have used this to drive their own conspiracy theories, spread disinformation and incite violence on their online platforms," he explains.