Boogaloo Boi tried inciting violence at BLM protests — while in US illegally, feds say

A 26-year-old man clad in a Hawaiian shirt and carrying a hot pink rifle stationed himself outside of a city hall building in Virginia to “raise awareness” about Ku Klux Klan activity in the area, according to a local TV station.

Six months later, the feds were busting down his door.

Jaap Willem Lijbers, a Dutch national who federal investigators say is entrenched in the far-right Boogaloo Bois, was arrested Tuesday on illegal firearms and immigration charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia said in a news release. Lijbers is accused of being in the country illegally since 2014.

A public defender appointed to represent Lijbers did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Tuesday.

Investigators started tracking Lijbers’ online activity last year during an FBI crackdown on members of the Boogaloo Bois, a “loose” concept often used to refer to a violent uprising or second civil war, prosecutors say.

The Boogaloo movement has attracted extremists who sometimes call it the “Big Igloo” or “Big Luau” and wear Hawaiian shirts. During a wash of Black Lives Matter protests and rallies last summer, members were reportedly showing up unannounced across the country in what some saw as a “bizarre alignment” with BLM.

One expert, a former terrorism analyst for the Department of Homeland Security, told The Kansas City Star the Boogaloo Bois will “capitalize on any type of event” in order to “add fuel to the fire and destabilize society.”

That’s exactly what Lijbers is accused of doing.

Ties to other Boogaloo Bois

Federal investigators first found Lijbers on Facebook. He was using the name Marvin Dorner as he communicated with three other known Boogaloo Bois members, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday.

Those contacts included 32-year-old Steven Carrillo, who was indicted in June on charges of killing a law enforcement officer in California; 26-year-old Ivan Harrison Hunter, who was charged in October with shooting at a Minneapolis police station during protests following the death of George Floyd; and Benjamin Ryan Teeter, a 22-year-old from North Carolina who wandered into a Subway sandwich shop in Raleigh heavily armed.

Teeter was later arrested on charges he conspired to sell weapons to the Palestinian terror group Hamas.

Lijbers, as Dorner, was in a group chat with Hunter and Teeter in which they planned to travel together to Minneapolis during the civil unrest on May 26, the complaint said. Teeter reportedly offered to pick Lijbers up in Virginia on his way, but work prevented him from joining.

In later messages, prosecutors said, Lijbers encouraged Hunter not to stand out and “appear civilian” during the protests.

“Bring marshmallows for the bonfire and seasoning for the pigs,” he said in a message on May 28 that referred to killing cops, according to the complaint.

Prosecutors said Lijbers continued trying to get a ride to Minneapolis but told the other members “all my Boogbois are chickening out, so it’s just me, which I always figured anyways.” He then reportedly started attending local rallies in Virginia.

On June 8, he told Hunter he’d been the only one armed at a protest in Tazewell, Virginia, where he held a sign that said “The Big Igloo Bois laugh in the face of tyranny,” court documents show. Lijbers went on to say he “showed every cop that sign.”

Two months later, prosecutors said he was interviewed by television station WVVA during a protest outside town hall in Richlands, Virginia. In the video, he tells reporters “there were KKK and Proud Boys in the area and that the police were backing them up,” the complaint states.

‘Boogaloo compounds’

Investigators say they found Lijbers under his aliases “Marvin Dorner” and “Jaxson Lynch” or “Jax” on Hunter and Teeter’s phones — which were searched after their arrests.

Prosecutors said “Jax” was part of a group chat on the app Signal with Teeter where there were discussions of making weapons, sending armed groups to Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing cops, “taking advantage of post-election chaos,” distancing themselves publicly from Carrillo after his arrest and “creating hideaway Boogaloo compounds.”

Investigators were eventually able to track down a contact on Dorner’s Facebook page, who told them Dorner’s real first name was Jaap and that he was from the Netherlands and had a child with a woman identified as B.K.

They then found a P.O. box that B.K. shared with Lijbers.

Immigration records showed Lijbers entered the United States on a 90-day visa in 2014 but never made any effort to apply for an extension, the complaint said.

FBI agents executed a search warrant at his house in Raven, Virginia, on Tuesday, where he reportedly told them he’d come to the U.S. to “meet a girl he met online.”

Agents also found two rifles and five magazines during the search, prosecutors said.

Lijbers was arrested and charged with illegal possession of a firearm while being unlawfully present in the United States. A federal judge ordered he remain in custody until a detention hearing on March 9, court filings show.