The Rise of the Soldiers of Aryan Culture

The Rise of the Soldiers of Aryan Culture by Robert Rosso

Shortly after the turn of the century U.S. Attorneys nationwide began targeting violent white prison gangs by using the federal “RICO statute,” a federal statute originally intended to dismantle or destroy the upper echelon of the five New York crime families. Among the gangs indicted were the California-based Aryan Brotherhood (AB) and Nazi Low Riders (NLR); the Texas-based Texas Aryan Brotherhood (T.A.B) and the Aryan Circle; and a relatively unknown yet eager-to-be-respected gang out of Utah called the Soldiers of Aryan Culture, “SAC” for short.

Court record and media reports confirm that Tracy Swena a.k.a “Tin Man” founded the gang inside the Utah prison system in 1997. Using a Para-military structure, Swena oversaw the gangs operations by acting as top general, ordering assaults on prison guards and running a methamphetamine ring.  To rise through the ranks, Swena admitted, members would commit violent acts against black and Hispanic inmates chosen at Random.

One such member was Lance Vanderstappen, a SAC member who along with gang Leader Swena, his Brother Steve Swena  and 10 others were convicted of racketeering. Immediately he was sentenced 63-months in federal prison, he was escorted to a temporary holding cell inside the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, Utah were he reportedly withdrew a three-inch home-made knife from his rectum and repeatedly stabbed a Hispanic inmate. According to the Salt Lake City Tribune, prosecutors said that Vanderstappen admitted that he had planed to “use the shive to kill someone at the earliest possible opportunity.”

And such vicious attacks committed by SAC members aren’t just intended for people in prison.

In 2002, Scott Biswell, a SAC leader, was shot and killed by a SWAT team in a Provo motel. Biswell, who had outstanding warrants for assaulting two women and a baby, was rumored to be trying to earn the first patch for killing an officer. As the SWAT team entered the room, Biswell reportedly raised a gun as if he were about to shoot an officer, who then fired first.

A career criminal from Utah named Victor Buchi has first-hand knowledge about the founders of the Soldiers of Aryan Culture. In October of 2007, at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, Bucho told Gorilla Convict that Tracy Swena and his younger brother Steve Swena a.k.a “Tazz” grew up in the suburbs of Ogden, Utah.

“They were like a lot of kids in the area. The got high, listen to a lot of rap, and committed petty crimes.” They were also in a multi-racial street gang, said Buchi. “They weren’t racists at all.”

Tracy Swena’s “racial awakening” occurred inside the Utah state prison system. According to Buchi, Tracy hooked up with an older white guy from California who had ties to the Aryan Brotherhood.

“I forgot dudes name,”  Swena, said. “But he gave Tin Man a bunch of white supremacy literature and he got hooked.” Also, worth noting, Buchi said, is that during that same time a gang called The Soldiers of Aryan Warriors (SAW) were really starting to rise. “The next thing I know, we get locked down for a while and when we came off Tin Man created his own gang. It was kind of weird because they did ride with SAW, but they were their own thing as well.  And they grew fast.”

SAC first gained notoriety in early 2002 after police officer’s in Ogden claimed that members of SAC/SAW had intended to use pipe bombs to attack Jewish athletes at the 2002 winter Olympics.

“After that happened,” Said Buchi. ” The feds were all over them. The rest, I guess you can say, is history.”

An intelligence report from the Fall of 2005 stated, “In 2003, following the Indictment of 12 SAC members for violating RICO, the lead prosecutor in the case received 2 death threats. In one letter, the anonymous author wrote: ‘You stupid bitch! It’s because of you that my brothers are in jail. We will get you.’ Signed, Until the casket drops.”

“After the same prosecutor received a second death threat by mail last December,” one media report said, “the federal judge presiding over the case called all 12 defendants together into the same courtroom and informed then that their visit and telephone privileges were suspended indefinitely. In an apparent coordinated assault, the defendants who were shackled and handcuffed, jumped up from their seats and began kicking, head butting and spitting on the federal marshals and bailiffs.”

For their crimes, all 12 SAC members plead guilty and received sentences ranging from 3 to 20 years, with brothers Steve and Tracy, the top Generals of the gang, receiving 12 and 20 years, respectively.

Prior to 2005, SAC had “more than 150 members across the state” of Utah. In an apparent effort to diminish or eradicate the gang entirely, once the Swena bothers and their co-defendants were convicted, prosecutors saw to it that key SAC members were separated from one another and sent to various prisons, a tactic known as “scattering them to the wind.” Needless to say, this plan failed miserably.

The Federal Bureau of prisons initially placed Tracy Swena at the United States Penitentiary (USP) in Florence, Colorado, and his younger Brother Steve Swena at USP Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, two maximum security prisons with no shortage of would-be recruits. During their first year in federal prison alone. SAC more than doubled their numbers.

Chris Gentry joined SAC in 2013. A native of Indiana, he’s never been to the State of Utah nor has he even met any of his gangs original founders.

“I patched up with SAC because I liked what they stand for,” he told Gorilla Convict. Serving 12 years for a methamphetamine conspiracy, we caught up with Chris on the 10th September inside a federal prison in the central region of the United States. “We are about racial pride. While schools and the media teach our youth that white people should be ashamed of our history we take our learned knowledge and teach young people that they should be proud of all the accomplishments that our race has done for the world. Our ancestors are the ones who built the world around us, that same world that is being ripped apart by degenerate races of lazy, whining, rapist. While the mud’s destroy everything we built, the mainstream media stays in ignoring or just not speaking the truth about real racial issues, and instead highlights anything that the white man does wrong – anything that rattles the cages and makes mud’s hate the man. That’s what our mainstream media does.”

Although Chris refuses to talk about any details surrounding SAC’s orientation requirements, reports state “new members have to complete a six to 12-month period of criminal missions. Often these orders include hits like stabbings on other inmates. Once the mission is complete and the member is approved, they receive a SAC patch, a tattoo of an iron cross wrapped by a swastika.” All members are required to read white supremacist literature and attack anyone who threatens their ideology, the report said.

“I’ll go so far as to say this, ” Chris tell Gorilla Convict. “We are well-versed in accurate, historical facts about the white race. We know white history. We are proud of our history. And we are committed to following our precepts, and to defend our brotherhood and our honor, at any cost.”

“And we don’t take kindly to being disrespected,” He emphasized

Case in point.  On November 28, 2007, at USP Beaumont, SAC member Mark Isaac Snarr a.k.a “Snuff” stabbed with intent to kill two correctional officers and one inmate, successfully eliminating the latter.

According to court documents (United States v. Snarr, 704 f. 3d 368, 396 5th Cir.), Gabriel Rhone, Edgar Garcia and Mark Snarr were all housed inside of the prisons Special Housing Unit (SHU). That day, as prison guards were escorting Snarr and Garcia from the rec’ yard to the respective cells, Snarr and Garcia slipped  from their hands cuffs, produced two homemade shanks, and stabbed Correctional officers Dewight Baloney and Josh McQueen more than thirty times total. The reason? The two convicts wanted the officers keys so they could enter the cell of Rhone and kill him, which they did.  And after the deed was done Snuff made clear the reason why they did it:” The dude disrespected us, and that’s what he got.”

Today Mark Snarr is housed at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana where he sits on death row…waiting. He is the first SAC member in the gang’s history to have been sentenced to death. Among his brothers, he is a legend.

What was once the dream of one white kid with a too much time on his hands, has become a national gang with an estimated 100s of members. The gang is thriving.

“When I get out I want to live in a place where there are only white people,” said Chris .”A place where there aren’t a bunch mud’s degrading women, crying about what they’re owed and asking for a bunch of handouts. I want  to live in a place where I am surrounded by my bro’s,  just a bunch of patch holders protecting our culture, raising our famlies, and living the real American dream. That’s why I am a Soldier of Aryan Culture.”