Iowa State student credited for report leading to arrests of neo-Nazi group members for sexual exploitation

    AMES, Iowa (KCCI) -- An Iowa State student is being credited for exposing an international neo-Nazi group that groomed and coerced minors online.

Chief Michael Newton with the Iowa State University Police Department says the victim reported the online sexual abuse and coercion to police while she was an Iowa State student in 2020. Newton says the four-year investigation turned into an international case and revealed at least 30 victims worldwide, some as young as 11 years old.

In total, four members of a group called CVLT (pronounced "cult") have now been charged in connection with what the United States Department of Justice called "a neo-Nazi child exploitation enterprise."

In November 2020, a student reached out to ISU police to report she was being blackmailed by a man she had met online two years prior when the student was still a minor. That led Iowa State police to investigate the suspect's online banking and social media accounts, which, along with Homeland Security investigators, helped them identify the man as Clint Jordan Lopaka Nahooikaika Borge, 41, of Pahoa, Hawaii.

Borge and Colin John Thomas Walker, 23, of Bridgeton, New Jersey, were each arrested on Jan. 30.

Rohan Sandeep Rane, 28, of Antibes, France, and Kaleb Christopher Merritt, 24, of Spring, Texas, were already in custody. A federal indictment says Walker, Borge, Rane and Merritt were alleged members of the CVLT, which declared Nazism, nihilism and pedophilia as its core principles. The U.S. Department of Justice says Rane, Walker and Merritt were leaders of the group by hosting and running CVLT's online servers.

The four suspects were indicted for grooming and coercing minors to produce child sexual abuse material and images of self-harm.

Newton says Iowa State University police officer Kami Feld, who was heavily involved in the investigation, was part of a group of law enforcement agents who traveled to Hawaii to serve a warrant. Iowa State police say the arrests may not have been possible without the Iowa State student coming forward in 2020.

“I have been in awe of her from the minute I became a part of this investigation,” Feld said in a news release. “When I think about what this case grew to become — she was the linchpin. She had the courage and bravery to say, 'This is not OK.'”