Andy Ngo in a file photograph. (Brendon Fallon/The Epoch Times) US News

By Zachary Stieber April 18, 2021 Updated: April 18, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

Members of the infamous Antifa cell in Portland are anxious after an informant in their midst gave information to police, leading to arson charges, Antifa expert Andy Ngo says.

“They’re panicking because this may possibly mean that somebody has infiltrated high … and there’s a lot at risk, because this is a criminal cartel,” Ngo said Saturday on NTD’s “The Nation Speaks.”

“And if there’s somebody in there and they don’t know who it is who’s informing on them, it could bring down the entire cell,” Ngo added. “I’m hopeful that that will happen, although I’m not sure if there’s the political will for the investigators to actually go through and fully investigate all the links and ties that this individual suspect has. But this is at least a little bit of good news in regards to months and months of really terrible things happening in Portland with no changes happening.”

Portland has seen repeated rioting since the spring of 2020. At least some of the violence has been linked to members of Antifa, a far-left, anarcho-communist network that has carried out violent acts in cities across the country.

Last week, prosecutors announced they were charging Alma Raven-Guido, a 19-year-old who has attended multiple riots, with arson, criminal mischief, and rioting—all felonies.

Raven-Guido is accused of pouring flammable liquid onto a fire that had been started at the building housing the Portland Police Association, a police union, during a riot on April 13. That liquid “resulted in the fire growing,” Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt said.

A witness saw one of the bottles Raven-Guido use catch fire and start melting and also told police that they saw her place the three bottles into a backpack. In a court document, a police officer described the witness as “the informant.”

Portland police officers found an accelerant and lighters when they arrested Raven-Guido shortly after the fire was set. They also found her to be in possession of a crow bar, spray paint, and heavy marker.

The fire caused an estimated $25,000-plus damage to the police union building. Daryl Turner, executive director of the union, said in a statement that no one was inside the building when it was set on fire and that neighboring homes were not damaged.

The arsonists were “a splinter group of rioters” who broke off from a peaceful march, Turner said.

Slogans favored by Antifa were scrawled on the side of the building, including “ACAB,” an anti-police acronym.

A court-appointed attorney for the defendant, who was released after being arraigned last week, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Antifa network in Portland does not have a public-facing brand, such as a spokesperson.

After publications started reporting on the informant’s information helping lead to Raven-Guido being charged, a lot of Antifa members on social media “were trying accuse one another, saying, ‘who was it?’” Ngo, the journalist who has tracked the network for years, was beaten by alleged members in 2019, and later left the United States because of threats, told NTD.

“And they’re really scared, so they’re locking down their social media accounts so that you can’t see what they’re saying anymore,” he added.

Screenshots shared by Ngo on Twitter, and other posts that are still publicly available, show people wondering about who informed on Raven-Guido.

“Somebody sold us out. Somebody sold every single one of us out. There’s somebody out there that would rather send a 19 year old indigenous person to prison than protect a single one of us. [expletive] you. Absolutely [expletive] you. I hope we find out who the [expletive] you are,” one wrote.

“So where did this happen and what’s that snitches address?” another posted.

Another user shared a meme that stated, “snitches get stitches.”

Ngo said he’s hopeful that the anxiety that has set in among Antifa members will lead to a decrease in the violence in Portland.

“I think that the group of people who are organizing, carrying out the violence is relatively small. So they stand a lot to lose actually if there’s going to be a high level of distrust within the ranks and Portland Police and even federal authorities have not been effective at clamping down on the violence in Portland, which is still ongoing to this day,” he said. “But hopefully, this—Antifa’s own paranoia—can be their undoing. One can hope.”