Federal prosecutors pursuing the “Riot Inc.” network face a financial paper trail showing $357 million in government grants flowing through fiscal sponsor organizations to hundreds of undisclosed recipients. Among them: a Shanghai billionaire’s now-insolvent nonprofit operating with negative net assets while coordinating nationwide protests.
The Tides Center received $37.8 million in government funding in 2024 alone. Tax records show at least $170 million in federal grants and up to $187 million in California state contracts flowed through the organization between 2001 and 2025. But the federal government’s official spending database shows only $34 million in grants to Tides during that period. The $105 million discrepancy between what USASpending.gov reports and what Tides disclosed on IRS Form 990 filings reveals a transparency problem at the network’s financial core.
Fiscal sponsorship allows umbrella organizations like Tides to hold tax-exempt status while hundreds of “projects” operate underneath without filing their own financial disclosures. ANSWER Coalition organized protests in a dozen cities within hours of the January 8 Minneapolis ICE shooting. It has no standalone tax filing. All finances flow through Progress Unity Fund, a San Francisco fiscal sponsor run by Workers World Party members. The public cannot see ANSWER’s budget, compensation, or activities. Progress Unity Fund’s consolidated Form 990 doesn’t break down project-by-project spending.
The gap matters because Attorney General Pam Bondi’s December 4 memorandum directs federal prosecutors to pursue “exhaustive investigation to map full networks of participants, organizers, and funders.” Investigators examining material support for terrorism and tax fraud face organizations whose financial structures make accountability nearly impossible.
The State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development sent the Tides Center $27.7 million between 2014 and 2025, primarily during the first Trump administration. The largest single grant funded USAID’s “Civil Society Innovation Initiative.” Another $4.06 million came through subgrants where Catholic nonprofits and research organizations passed federal money to Tides with government approval. Official purposes included addressing “corruption” in foreign governments, promoting “cultural exchange,” and supporting “civil society organizations both domestically and internationally.”
Those same federal funds subsidized fiscal sponsorship for Palestine Legal, which provides legal defense for anti-Israel activists, and Alliance for Global Justice, which served as fiscal sponsor for “Legal Defense for Palestine” and Samidoun. Payment processing companies halted business with Alliance for Global Justice over documented ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations.
California delivered more taxpayer money. Up to 18 state agencies donated nearly $187 million to Tides between 2019 and 2025 under Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration. The California Air Regulatory Board provided $100,000 in “community air grants.” The Department of Health Care Services sent $8.8 million. The Department of Public Health contributed $3.4 million. The Coastal Commission added $500,000. State officials told the Washington Free Beacon that contracts databases “do not reveal which project gets the cash in the end” and acknowledged the data provided was incomplete—actual payments “could eclipse” the $187 million total.
Neville Roy Singham’s Justice and Education Fund shows how the network operates while facing congressional scrutiny. The organization reported $5.6 million in revenue for fiscal year 2024 but spent $10.7 million, creating a $5.1 million deficit that pushed net assets to negative $827,000. The nonprofit is operating while insolvent. It built an $8.4 million war chest in 2022, then burned through the entire reserve plus another $4.5 million in two years while organizing the nationwide protest response Government Accountability Institute investigator Seamus Bruner documented for President Trump’s October 8 White House briefing.
Justice and Education Fund employs minimal staff—only $677,000 in wages for an organization spending $10.7 million annually. The bulk of revenue flows directly to grants listed on Schedule I of Form 990, which shows domestic recipients, and Schedule F, which shows foreign grants to completely undisclosed recipients. Federal tax law requires nonprofits to disclose every domestic grant over $5,000 with full organization details. Foreign grants require only the geographic region, general purpose, and dollar amount. No recipient names.
The Arabella Advisors network sent $97.4 million to undisclosed foreign recipients in fiscal year 2023 using this Schedule F loophole. Windward Fund directs 25 percent of its total grantmaking to foreign “environmental programs” without naming a single recipient organization. Federal investigators pursuing Foreign Agents Registration Act violations face organizations whose largest international expenditures remain completely anonymous under current IRS disclosure rules.
The Arabella network raised $1.39 billion across its four main funds in fiscal year 2024 but operated at a combined $118 million deficit, spending down reserves built during the 2020-2021 pandemic and election cycle. New Venture Fund lost $226 million in 2023. Windward Fund peaked at $274 million revenue in 2021, then dropped to $212 million by 2023. George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Gates Foundation, and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative flooded the network with $416.8 million combined between 2018 and 2023. The organizations are now burning through those reserves to maintain operations.
The Gates Foundation announced in August 2025 it would cease all grants to Arabella-managed nonprofits after providing $450 million over 16 years. The New York Times reported the decision “has sparked unease in the world of progressive philanthropy.” The foundation offered no public explanation for ending its largest nonprofit relationship. The withdrawal came as Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers filed suit in November alleging Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss sent more than $10 million through the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, New Venture Fund, and affiliated entities to fund state ballot initiatives in violation of Nebraska law barring foreign nationals from influencing elections.
Wyss represents the foreign money flowing through the same network now facing federal criminal investigation. The State Department designated four European Antifa groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations on November 13. FBI Director Kash Patel announced January 8 a nationwide investigation into “paid protest campaigns throughout the country including organizers, protesters and funding sources.” House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Singham on January 7 after he ignored a June 2025 demand for documents on his funding of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, The People’s Forum, and ANSWER Coalition.
Bondi’s memorandum directs federal prosecutors to pursue RICO statutes and establish cash reward systems for information on organization leaders while the IRS reviews tax-exempt status for nonprofits allegedly misusing charitable funds. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pledged to leverage IRS investigative tools to map financial networks.
The documentary evidence prosecutors need already exists in public filings: $357 million in government grants subsidizing fiscal sponsors that distribute funds to hundreds of undisclosed projects, $97.4 million sent to anonymous foreign recipients, and a Shanghai billionaire’s insolvent nonprofit coordinating domestic protests while operating with negative net assets. The network spent decades building legal infrastructure designed to obscure money trails. Whether prosecutors can penetrate fiscal sponsorship structures that make traditional financial accountability impossible will determine if federal authorities can prove tax fraud, material support for terrorism, or FARA violations against organizations whose financial disclosures were specifically designed to prevent exactly that kind of scrutiny.
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