Charlotte activists were 'duped' by Russians, feds say and it started on Facebook

The alleged Russian conspiracy to infiltrate a 2016 political rally in uptown Charlotte began with a friend request on Facebook.

The message to Andrew Fede came from a woman who identified herself as an activist with a group named BlackMattersUS.

Fede, a political organizer who came to Charlotte in April 2016, says he gets numerous friend requests each month. When he went to the woman’s Facebook page to learn more about her, he found that she had already been befriended by dozens of his existing Facebook friends. The BlackMattersUS page on Facebook had some 400,000 followers.

Fede thought they were both legit. He knows better now.

Last month, an indictment released by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller outlined a brazen attempt by Russian operatives to infiltrate the American political process and tip the presidential election to Donald Trump.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article203514854.html