Neo-Nazi had instructions on making submachine gun from scratch

A neo- Nazi cleaner has admitted collecting a stash of terrorist manuals from the age of 16, including how to make a home-made submachine gun.

Vitor Dias, now 21, had a fascination with Adolf Hitler and Nazi creed when he downloaded material from the internet over four years, the Old Bailey heard.

He pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing a document containing information useful for terrorist purposes with a further three similar offences to lie on the court file.

Opening the facts, prosecutor Christopher Amis said the defendant grew up in Brazil, before moving to England with his family in 2020 and working as a cleaner.

Following raids on his home in Willesden Green, north-west London, police found that between 2019 and 2023, when Dias was aged between 16 and 20, he had collected terrorist material and information demonstrating a extreme mindset.

It included information on how to make explosives and ammunition, and building a home-made submachine gun “from scratch” using metal sheets and tubes.

He also possessed a manual detailing guerrilla tactics, equipment and weapons, home-made explosives, firearms manufacture and booby traps.

Mr Amis said: “The material in his possession and communications in which he has taken part indicate that Vitor Dias is an adherent of Nazi ideology and far-right political causes, embracing as it does a hatred of Jews, LGBT persons and foreigners.

“What we suggest is that he deliberately accessed, and therefore came into possession of, material from the internet which, if he were a terrorist, would have been useful for his purposes.”

The court was told Dias shared his extreme views in WhatsApp messages with people said to be “schoolboy friends”.

He engaged in chat about antisemitic conspiracy theories and sent a video of a young American boy shouting racist abuse while holding a gun and a large knife, the court was told.

He had also made internet searches for material “of concern” under the terms “Do hitmans use knives”, “Butchering with push dagger” and “Disposing of bodies with beetles”, the court was told.

Dias continued to access terrorist material even after being warned by police not to in September 2022.

In police interviews, he had claimed to be unaware of what he was downloading or said he did so unintentionally.

Mr Amis said the evidence showed he was “deliberately downloading material from different, specific sites of interest and not merely stumbling across material he wasn’t really interested in and didn’t care to look at”.

Judge Mark Dennis KC is expected to sentence Dias at the Old Bailey on October 3.