(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) After raising tens of millions dollars from fomenting riots, spreading disinformation and gaslighting racism, Black Lives Matter is facing insolvency, even as some of its leading directors, cronies and connected relatives continue to rake in millions.
In the wake of a spending binge that funded lavish lifestyles of mansions, million-dollar consulting fees and bungled investments, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation last year plunged $8.5 million into the red, according to a copy of the group’s tax return obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Along with the value of the group’s investment accounts plunging nearly $10 million, BLM’s fundraising took an 88% nosedive from the previous year after it was forced to shutter its online shilling because of compliancy and transparency issues.
Since escalating its race-hustling in the aftermath of their George Floyd riots in 2020, BLM has burned through two-thirds of the $90 million it raised, the Beacon reported.
None of which has prevented the group’s original founders, successors and an entourage of well-connected relatives from reaping millions in business contracts, consulting fees and other dubious endeavors.
In a feverish financial frenzy, BLM blew about $12 million on mansions in Los Angeles and Toronto, millions more in upkeep, along with shelling out more than $10.5 million on contractors tied to founder Patrisse Cullors. Against that backdrop, the group’s slide toward insolvency gained little sympathy.
The grift is coming to an end.
Unless they can manufacturer another Summer of Rage to fundraise off of.
— SMOD Makes Everything Better… (@TheOneWhoSmods) May 23, 2023
“That’s what happens when your founder is only in it to enrich herself and her family members,” wrote one commentator. “How many mansions did that scammer Patrisse end up with at the end? 3? 4? I hope those who donated still feel shiny and virtuous.”
Tweeted another, “But they were such upstanding, high integrity swindlers.”
Cullors relinquished her BLM reign after backlash from her excessive spending and wayward leadership, but she has reportedly kept her hand in the cookie jar.
“While Patrisse Cullors was forced to resign due to charges of using BLM’s funds for her personal use, it looks like she’s still keeping it all in the family,” Paul Kamenar, an attorney for the National Legal and Policy Center watchdog group, told the Beacon.
Cullors’s brother, Paul, magically landed a BLM security contract worth $1.6 million despite being a graffiti artist with no security experience. He also raked in a $126,000 salary as “head of security.”
Shalomyah Bowers, who took over from Cullors when she resigned, kept the spending spigot intact with his consultancy firm siphoning off $1.7 million.
Bowers became embroiled in a legal battle last September when he was accused of pilfering upwards of $10 million and using BLM as his “personal piggy bank,” according to Black Lives Matter Grassroots, which filed a lawsuit seeking damages.
Bowers and BLM Global Network Foundation in response played their go-to race card, accusing BLM Grassroots of abetting white supremacy.
“They would rather take the same steps of our white oppressors and utilize the criminal legal system which is propped up by white supremacy (the same system they say they want to dismantle) to solve movement disputes,” the organization said.
