Most of you know about the tragedy that went down in New Zealand. 49 lives were lost that day due to white supremacy and intolerance, however, the aftermath of it was full of love and support. Post the attack that took place last Friday at two mosques in Christ Church in New Zealand, people from all over New Zealand have reached out to their fellow Muslims to make them feel safe.
The attack was carried out by a white supremacist terrorist named Brenton Harrison Tarrant who is a 28-year-old Australian. He was “deeply engaged in global alt-right culture” and showed allegiance to a number of Australian far-right figures. He obtained all of his weaponry online and as a result of this New Zealand imposed gun laws.
One thing that is of great significance in this event is the manifesto. Nine minutes prior to the attack he emailed a manifesto to 30 recipients, including Prime Minister’s office and several other media outlets. The manifesto contained gunman’s motive behind the crime and answered a number of self-asked questions. Apart from the Islamophobic and anti-immigration vitriol, it also stated that he was an investor in BitConnect, a well-known Ponzi scheme made famous by Carlos Matos.
BitConnect was a cryptocurrency which held an initial coin offering in late 2016, looting 486 Bitcoin in investment at that time – now worth $1.9 million.) It got pretty famous with a market cap of $2.2 billion. However, one thing was off and that was the crazy rates of return which was a clear red flag.
According to his manifesto, the gunman made money using the BitConnect’s Ponzi scheme and used that money to travel to places like Europe and Asia. Although this isn’t mentioned but according to reports he has traveled all these places, where he picked up the idea of ethnic cleansing and wanted to remove Muslims from “Christian lands” – so we are assuming that he used the money he made from this scheme. The amount he made is not specified here or hasn’t been disclosed by the media yet.
The manifesto also mentioned the popular game Fortnite and the gunman reportedly shouted “Subscribe to PewDiePie”, a famous YouTuber, while he was live streaming the attack.
It will be one of the darkest days in New Zealand’s history.
Although, we are not sure what quite to make of this connection or how useful this information will be once they publish a report.
We pray for the departed souls and hope we can prevent such attacks from happening. Wishing for a better, hopeful future.
