Online neo-Nazi group members arrested for exploiting minors

The online group operated in California, and actively supporting neo-Nazism, nihilism, and pedophilia as the core principles.

By ABIGAIL RUBINSTEIN FEBRUARY 27, 2025 12:04 Updated: FEBRUARY 27, 2025 12:20

FBI van in Texas (photo credit: REUTERS)

Four members of an online neo-Nazi Group were arrested at the end of January on federal charges of exploiting minors and producing child sexual abuse material.

Two men, Colin Walker, 23, from New Jersey, and Clint Borge, 41, from Hawaii, targeted approximately 16 minors globally, including two in Southern California.

They were arrested on the morning of January 30 under a grand jury indictment, charging them with one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise. They will appear in court in their respective states.

The other two men, Rohan Rane, 28, from France, and Kaleb Merritt, 24, from Texas, were already in custody at the time. A grand jury returned their indictment on January 17, which was unsealed on January 30, charging Rane and Walker with one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise.

Merritt has a history of preying on minors; he was arrested in 2021 for driving to Virginia, camping outside a 12-year-old’s house, and kidnapping her for 36 hours while also making plans to abduct another minor, according to CBS 6 News Richmond and 10 News.

An illustrative image of an individual with handcuffs. (credit: INGIMAGE)

Online neo-Nazi group

Rane, Walker, Merritt, and Borge, from at least 2019 to 2022, were members of “CVLT” (pronounced “cult”), an online group operated in Los Angeles and San Bernardino County, California, and actively supporting neo-Nazism, nihilism, and pedophilia as the core principles.

The international enterprise produces, advertises, possesses, distributes, and engages in child sexual exploitation and trafficked Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).

Rane, Walker, and Merritt acted as leaders of the CVLT, hosting and running online servers and controlling the membership for the group. 

Members of CVLT would work collectively to coerce and groom children, especially children suffering from mental health issues and histories of sexual abuse, to self-product CSAM on a platform run by CVLT. They would then expose children to extremist and violent content. 

The victims were encouraged to engage in dehumanizing acts, such as making them call themselves racial slurs, cutting and eating their own hair, and using razor blades to cut the names of CVLT members onto their skin. Eventually, the coercion would escalate into having the victims kill themselves on livestream. 

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For children who hesitated, resisted, or threatened to tell a parent or the authorities, CVLT would threaten to distribute already-obtained and compromising images and videos of the victims to the victim’s family and friends and expose the family’s personal information to the public. CVLT has been seen carrying out the threats. 

Rane has been previously charged with child sexual exploitation and other similar offenses in France and has been held in custody since 2022. Merritt is in the state custody of Virginia, serving a 50-year sentence for child sex abuse crimes in 2020 and 2021. 

If the defendants are convicted, they will face a minimum of 20 years in prison and a statutory maximum penalty of life in prison.