Last month, 20-year-old Luca Benincasa from Cardiff was sentenced to nine years in jail after pleading guilty to a range of terror offences.
The self-proclaimed “cell leader” of a proscribed neo-Nazi group was arrested in January last year after police raided his home in Whitchurch. They found a haul of extremist material including Nazi flags, airsoft rifles and documents on how to make explosives.
During last month’s trial at Winchester Crown Court, the judge was told that Benincasa got sucked into the far-right while spending time online during lockdown. The court heard that the then-19-year-old “became increasingly detached”, started identifying as an “incel”, and began to recruit other teenagers into terrorism online.
According to experts, Benincasa is the latest example of an alarming rise in the number of teenage boys being lured into far-right extremism in Britain.
