FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2020, file photo, Proud Boys leader Henry "Enrique" Tarrio wears a hat that says The War Boys during a rally in Portland, Ore. Police in the nations capital on Jan. 4, 2021, arrested the leader of the Proud Boys, who is accused of burning a Black Lives Matter banner that was torn down from a historic Black church in downtown Washington in December 2020.
(AP Photo/Allison Dinner, File)The leader of the Proud Boys, who was arrested in Washington shortly before the Capitol riot, previously worked undercover and cooperated with investigators after he was accused of fraud in 2012, court documents show.
The Proud Boys is a far-right, male chauvinist extremist group that seized on the Trump administration’s policies and was a major agitator during earlier protests and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
The Proud Boys have railed against a “deep state” and work to break down the current government system, and so the revelations of Tarrio as a federal informant came as quite a surprise.
When police pulled Tarrio over, officers found two unloaded magazines emblazoned with the Proud Boys logo in his bag that had a capacity of 30 rounds each, authorities said.