THE former leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio was arrested and charged with conspiring to attack the Capitol.
Tarrio is the second alt-right leader to be arrested and formally charged in connection with the January 6 riots.
Tarrio is from Miami-Dade County, Florida and he was raised in a Cuban family in Little Havana in Miami.
He told Heavy News that he was “lured” to the Proud Boys because it was a similar atmosphere to the home where he grew up.
“My house, at like 7 o’clock in the morning, there’s like 20 people, in my house, talking about politics, roasting each other, just making fun of each other,” he said.
A Reuters report revealed on January 27 that Tarrio has an extensive history working as an informant for federal and local law enforcement.
His undercover work reportedly led to the arrests of 13 people for various crimes related to drugs, gambling, and human smuggling.
The outlet obtained a transcript from a 2014 federal court proceeding where Tarrio’s undercover work was described and confirmed the story with a former prosecutor, Vanessa Singh Johannes.
The avid Donald Trump supporter, however, has said that he does not “recall” working undercover.
“I don’t know any of this,” Tarrio, 36, told Reuters. “I don’t recall any of this.”
Tarrio is an open Donald Trump supporter and on November 21, 2018, he took over the leadership of the Proud Boys from the alt-right groups’ founder Gavin McInnes.
He identifies himself as a leader of the South Florida chapter, one of six chapters in the state but each chapter has a degree of autonomy.
Tarrio has since been arrested for allegedly burning a Black Lives Matter banner.
Proud Boys member and far-right protester Alan Swinney was arrested on assault charges in 2020.
The 50-year-old allegedly attacked a Black Lives Matter protester with a paint gun on August 15 in Oregon.
A federal grand jury has charged Enrique Tarrio with conspiracy to stage an attack on the Capitol in January 2021.
According to The New York Times, prosecutors said Tarrio told the Proud Boys to dress incognito when they showed up at the Capitol on January 6 and was involved in a Telegram group chat during the chaos.
Although Tarrio allegedly gave the orders to the other members of the Proud Boys, he was not present at the riots, having been arrested two days prior.
In a press release issued on March 8, 2022, the Department of Justice said, “Tarrio nonetheless continued to direct and encourage the Proud Boys prior to and during the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and that he claimed credit for what had happened on social media and in an encrypted chat room during and after the attack.”
The Washington Post reported in January 2021 that Tarrio was arrested by Washington, D.C. officers on a warrant charging him with burning a Black Lives Matter banner at a Black Church following a pro-Trump rally in December 2020.
The judge barred Tarrio from Washington, D.C. on the day of the January 6 riots and he was charged with one misdemeanor count of destruction of property in connection with the December 12 burning of a banner taken from Asbury United Methodist Church.
He has also been charged with two counts of possession of high-capacity ammunition feeding devices.
A date for Tarrio’s trial has not been set and his attorney has not commented on the case.
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