Two founders of Portland Antifa have been found hiding in Sweden after US President Donald Trump decided to list Antifa as a terrorist organisation.
Johan Victorin and Caroline Victorin (née Gauld) founded the Portland Rose City Antifa group that has been accused of violent actions in the US city of Portland in the State of Oregon. They went underground in 2021 fearing charges.
The two, who both have dual US and Swedish citizenship, are reported to have fled to Europe and been found to be living in the Swedish town of Varberg by independent Swedish journalist Christian Peterson who specialises in tracking extreme left-wing groups.
Violent Portland terrorist group Rose City Antifa was founded by Johan Victorin and Caroline Victorin (née Gauld). The two fled to Europe, and a Swedish independent journalist @christianpet_ has finally found them! They’ve been hiding in Varberg, Sweden! pic.twitter.com/RELXovEvoF
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) October 6, 2025
According to Peterson, Rose City Antifa has engaged in orchestrated violent attacks on the police, Republican politicians and federal government buildings during the Black Lives Matter-inspired riots of 2020.
Peterson said the group engaged in Black Block, a technique of concealing identity while committing offences and attacking opponents during demonstrations.
Trump banned Antifa as a whole following the murder of Charlie Kirk and amid social media posts celebrating or mocking the killing.
The US President signed an executive order in late September designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist group. Antifa was stated to be a “militaristic, anarchist enterprise” that was intent on overthrowing the government and undermine law enforcement.
The order states: “Antifa recruits, trains, and radicalises young Americans to engage in this violence and suppression of political activity.”
Trump’s directive instructs all relevant federal departments and agencies to use existing authority to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations”. That includes the prosecution of individuals and organisations accused of providing financial or material support to the group.
His decision means anyone continuing to be engaged in organising Antifa in the US can be indicted for conspiracy, a charge that can carry a sentence of life imprisonment.
Petersen approached Victorin and asked him to comment on whether he fears prosecution by or deportation to the USA but received no reply.
Antifa is a decentralised, leaderless movement composed of loose collections of groups, networks and individuals whose professed purpose is the opposition to fascism, some of whose members have engaged in violence and vandalism.
It began in Europe in the 1960s with the notion that the Nazis in Germany could have been prevented from coming to power had they been opposed more aggressively on the streets. It spread to the US in the 1970s.
Most Antifa members today come from the anarchist movement or the far left-wing and have increasingly expanded their definition of fascism to include not just white supremacists but also many Conservatives and supporters of Trump, businesses and the police.
Antifa groups in Portland and other US cities have been actively engaged in protests, some of which have been violent, against attempts by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain illegal migrants as the network fiercely opposes these moves as being racist.
Trump called Portland a “war-ravaged city” in a Truth Social post to justify his decision to send in federal troops. That was part of a raft of such decisions by the US administration to enforce law and order in the cities, although some of those moves have been contested in the courts.
