Former Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) CFO Heidi Beirich was arrested in California and hit with fraud charges on Wednesday.
Beirich oversaw the payments to the informants inside the KKK and other white supremacist groups receiving money from the SPLC.
Read the newly unsealed superseding indictment here.
The Justice Department in April indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 counts, including wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.
The SPLC was indicted for secretly funneling more than $3 million in funds to members of white supremacist and extremist groups, the DOJ said.
A grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment against the SPLC.
In April, Blanche said the grand jury indicted the SPLC on 6 counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
On Wednesday, a new indictment was unsealed charging Heidi Beirich with fraud.
CNN reported:
A former chief financial officer at the Southern Poverty Law Center has been arrested in California and for her alleged role in overseeing secret payments to informants inside of White supremacist groups, one of whom she was allegedly living with and had a romantic relationship with at the time.
The woman, Heidi Beirich, previously ran the SPLC’s project tracking hate groups in the US and allegedly “oversaw payments of donors’ money” to people inside of these hate groups, according to the indictment. Prosecutors say she shared a bank account with one of those sources, which included funds from the SPLC’s payments.
“I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts in completely fictitious companies’ names and make payments to individuals for reasons that that were not accurate as as described,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference Wednesday. “This is exactly what we said would happen in a case like this, which is that our investigators and the US attorneys and the agents working the case will can keep on working it even after the initial indictment.”
US Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed that Heidi Beirich has been arrested.
Blanche said a new indictment was unsealed, alleging Beirich participated in the scheme to open bank accounts and make payments to the white supremacist groups.
WATCH:
🚨 BREAKING: The DOJ has ARRESTED the former CFO of the Southern Poverty Law Center on FRAUD CHARGES, AG Blanche confirms
Heidi Beirich was in charge of secretly paying donor money to “White supremacist groups,” and ran SPLC’s project tracking “hate groups” in the US
BEAUTIFUL! pic.twitter.com/0BNgRxnvtB
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 12, 2026
FBI Director Kash Patel said Heidi Beirich “played a primary role in this scheme. From at least 2007-2023, Beirich allegedly helped orchestrate this fraudulent activity worth approximately $4.2 million, conspiring with SPLC to defraud donors, obtaining money through these materially false and fraudulent pretenses and omissions to pay leadership of the very violent organizations SPLC claimed to oppose.”
“Beirich was arrested today – charged with crimes including wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering,” Kash Patel said.
Following an FBI investigation with our DOJ partners: today we are announcing a superseding indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Director of Intelligence, Heidi Beirich.
As alleged, Heidi Beirich was at the center of our ongoing investigation into SPLC and their…
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) August 12, 2026
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