The U.S. Department of Justice has charged the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights group that has classified certain Catholic organizations as hate groups, with multiple fraud charges for alleged use of paid informants to monitor racist organizations.
SPLC, an organization that reports it fights “white supremacy and various forms of injustice,” faces charges including 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. SPLC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While there has been overlap with Catholic advocacy over the years on social and economic justice issues such as racial justice and advocacy concerning conditions in immigration detention centers, the SPLC has also taken positions that many Catholic institutions strongly dispute. SPLC has labeled some Catholic organizations as “hate groups.”
The U.S. attorney for the middle district of Alabama issued the April 21 indictment. The FBI and the Internal Revenue Service investigated.
“The SPLC allegedly engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors, enrich themselves, and hide their deceptive operations from the public,” Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel said.
While “vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups,” SPLC “actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups,” Patel said.
According to the indictment, in the 1980s the SPLC began operating a network of individuals who were associated with, or who infiltrated, violent extremist groups at the SPLC’s direction. Donors were unaware that donations were funding the organizers of the same racist and extremist groups that the SPLC reported it was denouncing.
Prosecutors said that between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals associated with various extremist groups including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, National Socialist Party of America (American Nazi Party), and United Klans of America. No Catholic groups were mentioned in the indictment.
According to the indictment, the scheme was intended to obtain money via donations through materially false representations and omissions about what the funds would be used for.
In order to pay the individuals, the SPLC allegedly opened bank accounts connected to a series of fake entities such as “Fox Photography” and “Rare Books Warehouse” that were used to send money from donors to informants. The SPLC then made a series of false statements related to the operation of the accounts, the indictment alleges.
“The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche when announcing the indictment. “Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked.”
U.S. Attorney Kevin Davidson said this “kind of deception undermines public trust and social cohesion.”
Patel added that it is an “ongoing investigation against all individuals involved.” The DOJ reported a conviction will result in the forfeiture of financial gains from the alleged illegal activities.
Labeling Catholics and Christian groups
In recent years, SPLC has been accused of unfairly labeling Christian organizations as “radical.”
In July 2025, the House Judiciary Committee found documents that revealed the FBI “put more federal law-enforcement resources into surveilling Catholics than previously known.”
The committee’s report found that several internal FBI documents used the terms “radical traditionalist catholic” or “Radical-Traditionalist Catholic” between 2009 and 2023. An FBI internal database contained at least 13 documents that used these terms that all cited the SPLC.
Also, in 2021, critics of SPLC said the organization had become extreme after it released its 2020 “census of hate groups,” which included numerous pro-life and family organizations.
Along with the Ruth Institute, Christian organizations Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal advocacy organization defending religious liberty, and Family Research Council, a nonprofit promoting family values, were also both designated as “Anti-LGBTQ hate groups” by SPLC for their stances on marriage and family.