Deport Them Now. The group that carried out attacks in Spain

"This is one of the darkest moments our civilization has faced. We need historic solutions. If we don't eliminate this globalist system, our children and grandchildren will live in third world countries as a despised and intimidated minority. That's why we need remigration, first and foremost, to honor our ancestors." At the end of that fiery speech, Afonso Gonçalves, face of the far-right Reconquista movement, was applauded by the audience attending the Remigration Summit in Milan in May of this year. Pedro Pinto Faria, national advisor for Chega, also spoke on the same stage. Sitting in the third row, he watched Christian, the Spaniard arrested this Monday on suspicion of being one of the leaders of the movement that recruited people to "hunt down North Africans" in Torre Pacheco, the Spanish town engulfed in violence in recent days .

The elderly man attacked "for fun," the attackers, and the riots. Six answers to understand what's happening in Torre Pacheco

Authorities point to him as one of the leaders of the group's Spanish faction, and he himself appears to confirm this in a video shared in a report on the Italian program Piazza Pulita at the end of May, days after the summit that brought together far-right groups in that northern Italian city: "Good morning everyone, I'm Christian, leader of Deport Them Now." The group, with links to Vox and which closely follows the posts of Portuguese Afonso Gonçalves on Telegram, used that same network to direct hatred against immigrants in the small town of Murcia, in southeastern Spain, where a violent attack on an elderly man was the final straw that sparked a backlash that brought radical rightists and people of North African descent face to face in the streets.

The information about immigration shared in the groups—much of it without any factual basis—served as fuel to fuel the radical ideologies of the movement that advocates the "immediate deportation of all illegal immigrants" and has established chapters in Spain, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom. A source from the Judiciary Police assured Observador that this group has no presence in Portugal, although the phenomenon is being closely monitored by national authorities. "SOME YOUNG FOREIGNERS just left a resident of Torre Pacheco," captioned the member of the Spanish Telegram group, with an image of Domingo's brutally injured face. As well as this real image, false information was shared: such as a video showing another elderly man being attacked and the alleged faces of five attackers.

Meetings quickly began to be arranged to carry out the attacks in Torre Pacheco. "I [can go] every day, death to those sons of b***hes, now," wrote user Franco, quoted by El País , expressing his intention to travel to Murcia. "We're taking two cars. Who's coming?" To date, in addition to Christian's capture , Spanish authorities have detained the other two people involved in the attack on Domingo (although they did not participate; one only witnessed it, and the other recorded and released it) and several others involved in the violent protests.

Third suspect arrested in the Basque Country for assault on an elderly man in Torre Pacheco

The incidents, which lasted several days and required significant intervention by the country's authorities, have been closely monitored by the Judiciary Police and the PSP. The PSP's National Directorate confirmed this monitoring to Observador, explaining that it monitors "all criminological phenomena that occur in our country, always monitoring, with a preventive interest, all international criminal phenomena."

The same source recalls that the PSP “is part of several international institutional groups for exchanging police information and maintains permanent ties with them”.

And he concludes, clarifying that, “as a national police institution”, the PSP “is part of an Internal Security System that monitors all types of phenomena that may compromise or put public order and security at risk”.

The hunts for immigrants organized in the neighboring country by extremist groups fall into this type of phenomenon, to which, in fact, the authorities have been paying close attention in recent months, particularly the Judiciary Police, which on June 17 launched an "unprecedented" operation on national soil, which led to the arrest of six members of an extremist organization , including a PSP member, for terrorist activities and incitement to hatred.

This operation was even highlighted by the two national security observatories (OSCOT and OSI) as a reason for not including the controversial chapter on extremism in the final version of the Annual Homeland Security Report .

The Judicial Police (PJ), on the other hand, not only monitors but also investigates this type of violent crime. When asked by Observador about what is being done regarding the incidents in Spain, Luís Neves, national director of the Judicial Police, assured that the police force "investigates all forms of violent extremism," emphasizing that this is where the phenomena occurring in the neighboring country "fall into place."

However, according to what Observador has learned from various sources, no elements have been identified in Portugal to date that point to a level of violence identical to that seen in Torre Pacheco.

Deport Them Now (DTN) has been active on Instagram since January of this year, when the group was formed, reports El País . Despite this, until the wave of attacks in Torre Pacheco, the group hadn't raised any alarms on the authorities' radar, who only began to monitor it more closely after its "international baptism" when it participated in the Italian summit that brought together far-right figures from several European countries, including Portugal.

The movement, whose Spanish faction is led by Christian, was not among the invited participants—unlike the Alternative for Germany (AfD); the Forum for Democracy (FvD) of the Netherlands; the Reconquista of France; the National Party of Ireland; and the Lega of Italy. Countries such as Belgium, Spain, Austria, and Sweden missed the call, but the organization of which Afonso Gonçalves himself is a member—which calls itself a "founder of the 1st International Remigration Summit"—has already announced that it expects its representatives to attend the next edition.

The rally's lineup featured five speakers, with Portuguese Afonso Gonçalves being the youngest. The young Reconquista leader is gathering supporters on social media, where he shares videos of himself invading immigrant demonstrations or disrupting religious gatherings—actions that have already resulted in his arrest.

On Instagram, he has nearly 50,000 followers, including the DTN account, which not only follows the Portuguese man but also interacts with him on some posts. "Remigration will take place in Europe soon," reads a comment from the movement on a video Afonso Gonçalves recently shared, in which he criticizes the immigrant population in Portugal and multiculturalism in Lisbon.

In several other Instagram posts from the rally, the DTN page warned: “We will be there” and “We will watch.”

On May 17th, a new post: "Representing Spain at the Remigration Summit." The image, from behind, shows a shaved man wearing a t-shirt saying "España." Previously, he had shared another video in Piazza Duomo in Milan, a few kilometers from the meeting venue. The man is Christian, who, with the same background as the video released by the Italian press and without showing his face, was the only DTN representative at the meeting.

Contacted by Observador to clarify whether he maintains any relationship with the leader of the DTN in Spain, Afonso Gonçalves did not respond in a timely manner. Despite this, the summit organizers appear to have frowned upon Christian's intrusion, who appeared in "symbolic clothing." These garments, unlike the military-patterned clothing he usually wears, featured a Celtic cross commonly worn by Nazis, prompting staff members to ask him to change his shirt. "Obeying the hysteria of political correctness…" he denounced in a video that began with a Nazi salute to the camera. "Since when has an ancestral symbol, used for centuries in European culture, been a reason for censorship?" asked the leader of the movement, who was later labeled an "idiot" by Andrea Ballarti, another of the meeting's organizers.

Not much time passed between the anonymity of someone who kept his face hidden on social media and the media exposure after his arrest. "We don't hide behind words," Christian said, once again with his face covered, in a video shared on Instagram.

The secrecy ended when the Spanish press revealed his name. They quickly got to the 29-year-old's face, having not kept a low profile at the various demonstrations attended by the DTN, alongside Vox, the Spanish far-right party led by Santiago Abascal and part of Patriots for Europe, a European Parliament group to which Chega also belongs.

"We're fed up with Moors," the Spaniard shouted at a demonstration in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Barcelona. The march, supposedly against insecurity, passed through one of Mataró's most immigrant neighborhoods and was called by a Vox activist—the poster promoting the event featured the DTN acronym and the symbol of Abascal's party side by side.

"He was dressed as a soldier and was shouting a lot. But look at his face, he looks more Moroccan than me," a Mataró resident who recalled Christian's presence at the protest told El País . Neighbors of the house where the young man lived with his mother and father describe him as "friendly," but the "least friendly of the family" and always "dressed like he's going to the army." "I'd find him at the gym, always in military gear," another neighbor described.

In this demonstration, just one of several in which this group has participated in recent times, those who saw them described them as being the “ultras of the ultras” shouting at the doors of kebab restaurants.

Until his arrest on Monday in the Basque Country, when he was allegedly trying to flee to Spain (he was placed in pretrial detention), Christian's preference for camouflage was the only thing his neighbors knew about him. Now, the press reveals, it's known that the Spaniard had obtained a license to work as a private bodyguard in January, which would also allow him to obtain a firearms license. Despite the hateful chants at the protests, he had a spotless criminal record and received a license to work as a private security guard in 2021. Two years later, he attempted to enter the prison guard profession but failed a job interview.

Most of the photos now released of the Spaniard are from the demonstration in Catalonia, where Christian appears, sometimes behind a banner advocating "remigration," sometimes alongside José Casado, one of Vox's advisors in the region, but always with a megaphone in hand. "I don't know this guy. There are photos of me with him because I took photos with more than 40 people that day," the politician explained to El País.

Detained by the Guardia Civil, the young leader of one of Spain's most extremist organizations awaits a decision on his future, which will now be decided by the courts. Authorities are investigating whether Christian had the ability to mobilize extremists through social media and Telegram chats.

The reaction of the DNT — and other members of the far-right media space, from parties to anti-immigrant movements — to the attack on Domingo was a prototype of how these groups act on more media-heavy issues.

In the Torre Pacheco case, social media was quick to react, particularly through Telegram, a favorite platform for extremist movements due to its secrecy (it was on this app that, for example, the Lusitanian Armillary Movement organized). Experts interviewed by El País compare the operation of DTN—a "ghost group" with a "very diffuse hierarchy" and no known infrastructure—to pro-Russian websites.

Contributing to this misinformation was Alvise Perez, a Spaniard who rose to prominence on social media and reached the European Parliament in the last elections with Se Acabó la Fiesta, the far-right party he founded months before going to the polls.

The congressman was among those who shared a video showing an elderly man being beaten, with these users claiming the victim was Domingo, the man attacked in Torre Pacheco. The information would later be denied (it was another man, a homeless homosexual from Valencia, and the video was from May), but the impact had already been made. Many extremist movements responded, and the seed was sown for mobilization toward the Murcian town.

"Don't we have the right to defend Spain? Our Constitution defends us: Article 30. Spaniards have the right and duty to defend Spain. Therefore, we reaffirm that the call for popular patrols to hunt down delinquent Maghrebians on July 15, 16, and 17 remains valid, as it is legal," wrote the DTN in the second statement shared, calling for the mobilization of all "state anti-immigration organizations, football ultras, Christian associations, and neighbors."

Torre Pacheco: The Spanish town that became a battleground as the far right "hunted" North Africans

On Telegram, the DTN is divided into several groups: there's a French, Italian, British, and Spanish group. Within each group, regional subdivisions emerge. The Spanish group, after the movement's involvement in the riots became public, was closed and migrated to another group, created on Wednesday, which gathered around 90 followers this Friday.

"Hello! Did you close the Deport Them Now Spain group?" asked one user, to which the administrator promptly replied: "No... this is it, but I changed the name to Spanish," she explained, arguing that this was now the official group.

The hate messages keep coming: "You know what I think [about what happened] in Torre Pacheco is that something big needs to be done so that people start to wake up"; "Another Hitler should appear, but instead of targeting Jews, target all immigrants"; "It would be great if Abascal set up a kind of SS or SA [paramilitary organizations linked to the Nazis] so that there is no mercy for those who are not from this land."

Among the conversations, Portugal doesn't go unnoticed. One user shares a news story from the ABC newspaper with the headline " Portugal toughens migration policy: fewer visas, police unit for expulsions, and limits on family reunification " and a reference to support from the "far-right." Sharing the same story in the "Hercles" group, also of a nationalist nature, earns a response: "Very good, Chega."

On Instagram, the movement's approach involves using Artificial Intelligence to generate offensive videos. From Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute in front of a plane emblazoned with the group's name, to several Muslims in costume blowing themselves up on board a plane, there are many examples of this group's approach on social media, with some criticizing organizations like Open Arms and the Red Cross.

One of the most offensive videos, so much so that it was deleted from social media, showed a group of Muslims entering a recreation of Auschwitz, with prisoners also dying in a gas chamber. Standing before the dozens of bodies is Abascal, dressed in military uniform.

The DTN's banner of remigration didn't resonate widely in Portuguese politics, a trend that has been reversed in line with the rise of the far-right, which is particularly prominent on social media. Very recently, Chega MP Rita Matias defined this issue as one that must be placed "on the agenda."

"The issue of remigration is not yet on the agenda in any way, from a legislative standpoint. But if we want to be intellectually honest, we have to understand that it will have to be put on the agenda soon. I'm not saying that Chega will do so, because I don't have full say on this matter; I'm just one of the vice-presidents of the parliamentary group and a member of the national board. (...) But I have no doubt that my generation—I'm 26 years old—will have to seriously address this issue," she said in an interview with Sol.

Previously, André Ventura himself had admitted, in an interview with Observador, that "remigration is very much in vogue today." "Because it's a devolutionary concept, it's a concept that shocks people more," he explained, before defining what the party understands by remigration: "Expelling those who, while here, no longer meet the contribution requirements; [we advocate] remigration in situations where the massive presence of people from other cultures jeopardizes our own," without specifying the purpose of these cultural specificities.

While far from being Chega's main protest topic, it was in Reconquista that the issue of remigration gained the most prominence. On its website, Afonso Gonçalves' movement highlights the most significant moments since the group's founding in 2023. One of these milestones, worth highlighting, occurred on May 27, 2024, when Chega's leader mentioned the topic of "remigration." "As a result of the work of RECONQUISTA activists, the president of the CHEGA party suggests the REMIGRATION of immigrants. This was a major metapolitical victory for the movement."

Despite presenting itself as a "nonpartisan political movement" aiming to be an "alternative" to political parties, Reconquista has already been mentioned alongside Chega. Recently, Afonso Gonçalves expressed his support for André Ventura's party in the recent legislative elections.

But the symbols of Reconquista and Chega had already appeared side by side in a montage that generated controversy. In January of this year, Ventura shared an image (a meme ) generated with Artificial Intelligence in which he appears dressed as an airplane captain with a fictitious ticket with the following description: "This boarding pass certifies your participation in the flight back to your country of origin." In the caption, the party leader added: "The PS and PSD want to know what we would do to the illegal immigrants in Portugal? Here's the answer: a ticket away, until they comply with the same rules as everyone else."

In Spain, on the other hand, the press reports a clear connection between DTN and Vox, with El País recalling the various demonstrations in which they appeared marching in the same direction. The Socialist Party of Catalonia released images of demonstrations organized by Abascal's party, which included Christian's participation.

"As can be seen in the photos and videos, (...) Vox councilors, including the list leader and also a member of parliament, Mónica Lora, actively participated behind a banner and with a megaphone. It is clear that there is a relationship and a joint strategy between them [the DTN leader and Vox]," reads a note shared on the party's website.