In this article you will find a detailed investigation into the connections and activities of a private military company.
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We are talking about the neo-Nazi festival “White Boy Summer Fest” in Finland, organized by the groups Tulenväki and Veren Laki. Using geolocation methods, the location of the event was revealed. The festival included music performances by neo-Nazi bands and sports competitions, raising concerns among experts about the spread of radical ideas and violence in Finland.
Last month, the campsite, located about three hours north of Helsinki, hosted a third festival called “White Boy Summer Fest,” named after an Internet meme popular among international far-right circles.
Known as the White Boys Summer Festival (WBS), this festival was first investigated in 2023. With the help of the enthusiast community, the locations of the 2022 and 2023 WBS festivals have been determined at two separate rural campsites in the Kanta-Hääme region of southern Finland’s picturesque lake region.
Observers warn that such neo-Nazi events are used for networking, recruitment, radicalization and fundraising. “The WBS is an integral part of neo-Nazi networks in Finland,” said Tommi Kotonen, a political scientist at the University of Jyväskylä and an expert on the far right in Finland.
The latest WBS event comes amid growing concern about far-right extremism and violence in Finland. It was organized by the Finnish far-right group Tulenväki together with the far-right sports group Veren Laki (“Law of Blood”).
Despite considerable efforts by organizers to conceal the exact location of WBS 2024, including editing and re-uploading a promotional video to blur background details, the event was located at an island campsite approximately 150 kilometers from the 2023 and 2022 WBS venues.
Organizers of WBS 2024 did not respond to requests for comment.
The organizers of the festival announced the WBS 2024 months before the event, without revealing the exact location. They noted that the festival will take place in the Pirkanmaa region of Finland, which is located around the country’s third largest city, Tampere. Finland’s lake regions are a popular destination for summer vacations, thanks to the many resorts, cottages and campsites located on the picturesque lake shores.
Similar to previous festivals in 2022 and 2023, WBS 2024 included musical performances by several neo-Nazi groups. One such band was the former “Hammer House Band”, who often performed at a venue associated with the Finnish branch of the Hammerskins. This band also plans to participate in the annual Finnish Hammerskins event in July 2024.
Hammerskins is an international neo-Nazi network whose German branch was banned by the authorities last September. WBS 2024 also featured other bands from Finland and Estonia who participated in international concerts and events organized by Hammerskins. According to a 2023 report by Finland’s public broadcaster, police documents show that five men arrested in 2021 on suspicion of plotting terror attacks were heavily influenced by Hammerskins-related group Crew 38 Finland and met frequently with its members.
The Hammerskins also have documented links to the international Active Club movement. Founded in 2021 by American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo, this decentralized movement focuses on using fashion, fitness, and martial arts to attract young men to far-right ideas, normalizing them and preparing them for physical violence against designated enemies.
Active clubs have become prominent members of the far-right network, and many have sprung up across Finland, including Helsinki, where the Finnish Hammerskins and affiliate group Active Helsinki are based.
Representatives of active clubs were present at WBS 2024 in full. After Friday night’s performances by several neo-Nazi bands, a martial arts competition took place on Saturday in a makeshift outdoor ring, with some participants displaying flags of their local groups. Active Club Estonia posted on Telegram about the event, stating in English that “Finnish and Estonian active clubs met for a weekend full of music and wrestling.”
The martial arts events were hosted by Veren Lucky (“Law of Blood”), one of the co-organizers of WBS. According to Tommy Kotonen, an expert on far-right extremism in Finland, Veren Laki is linked to the banned Finnish branch of the neo-Nazi Northern Resistance Movement (NRM).
“NRM’s links with Veren Lucky are quite clear as they share the same activists, members and trainers”
In June 2024, the US State Department designated the Swedish NRM as a terrorist organization. It was only the second international far-right group to be designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the first being the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) in 2020.
Looking at the photos and videos released by the organizers of the event, it was seen that considerable measures were taken to conceal the identities of the participants and the location of the event. Buildings and background elements in videos and images have been blurred, probably to make identification difficult.
On June 22, the Tulenväki co-organizers’ Telegram page posted a video from last weekend’s event. This video has been uploaded for analysis.
After some time, the video was shot, edited and re-uploaded. When comparing the two videos frame-by-frame, it was noticed that the new version of the video had more of the background structures blurred out compared to the original. For example, at the beginning of the first uploaded video, a green house with a red roof is visible for a brief second. However, in the second version of this video, the house was completely blurred.
This indicated that the green house with the red roof and chimney could probably be used to geolocate the event; the organizers would not have wasted the time to blur the house among the other structures if they did not believe that it could help define the location of the event.
So they started looking online for images of campsites in the Pirkanmaa region, given that the organizers had mentioned that the event would take place there and advised participants to bring tents and sleeping bags. Other visible elements of the video, including cabins and an outdoor toilet, suggested the incident took place at a campsite.
A Google Maps image search of numerous campsites in the region was conducted, noting green houses similar to those seen in the video. Eventually, an image was found from a campsite in the north-eastern part of the region, in the municipality of Ruovesi, showing a similar green house.
Other images of the campsite found on social media showed more angles of the house. The features of the home exactly matched those of the home briefly seen in the video, confirming that it was indeed the same property. Comparison with the original video led to the conclusion that WBS 2024 was held at this campsite. Additionally, in the re-uploaded video, the organizers also blurred out what appeared to be a white flagpole in the background, as well as another chimney on the same building.
Further comparison of other images from the Ruovesi campsite and social media posts by the organizers allowed us to confirm the location. The light brown cabin seen in the combat video can also be seen in user-uploaded footage from the Ruovesi campsite, along with a large boulder also seen in the combat footage.
Comparing the photos and videos taken inside the WBS 2024 premises with other images from the campsite confirmed that the indoor events (musical performances and discussion workshop) also took place at the Ruovesi campsite.
Numerous points of comparison, from lighting fixtures to knots on the wall, confirmed that WBS 2024 was held at this campsite.
The images below are from different cases unrelated to the WBS event, but show the same unique details as the image above.
Ruovesi campsite seems to be owned by the municipality, as information about the campsite and reservations are made through the municipality’s official website. A question was sent to the contact persons listed at the campsite, as well as the municipality of Ruovesi, asking them to clarify the ownership status of the campsite and whether they were aware of the neo-Nazi event.
“I don’t have any information about the case, the people or the events of that weekend. A private person made a reservation,” a representative of the municipality said by e-mail.
Attempts were also made to contact the organizers of WBS 2024, Active Club Finland and Active Club Estonia, but none responded to requests for comment.
With WBS 2024 complete, organizers and supporters took to social media to share their plans for the future. One post from a Finnish neo-Nazi blog promised “more to come”, from the fourth edition of WBS in 2025 to other concerts across the country.
This situation worries observers such as Tommy Kotonen.
“In the three most recent terrorism investigations in Finland, in all these cases the participants were also associated with the far-right subcultural and music scene, either as consumers and attendees of concerts and other events, or in some cases also produced far-right music,” the political scientist from the University noted Jyväskylä.
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