The UFF funded its operations through several bank robberies in the late 1970s and 1980s.
The United Freedom Front (UFF) was an American terrorist group responsible for a string of terrorist attacks, as well as purely criminal acts, in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Originally named the "Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson group," the UFF was founded in 1974 by two Vietnam veterans, Raymond Luc Levasseur and Thomas Manning. The two met in prison, where Levasseur was serving a sentence for drug dealing, and Manning for robbery. After their release, the two incorporated other members in to the UFF, mostly family members and close friends.
The UFF was a left-wing organization that strongly opposed US foreign policy in Central America, as well as South African apartheid. Self-defined as a "revolutionary group," members of the UFF saw themselves as a fighting back against perceived American imperialism.
From 1975 to 1984 the group committed several bank robberies and bombing attacks in the northeastern United States, including a November 1983 bombing of the United States Capitol building, and a September 1984 bombing at the South African Consulate in New York. In addition, the UFF attacked the offices of Union Carbide (the chemical company responsible for the Bhopal disaster) and several other corporate targets. In all of the bombing attacks, callers from the UFF gave warning, and casualties were avoided. However, Manning and Richard Williams, another UFF member, were responsible for the 1981 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper, the group's lone inflicted casualty.
On November 4th, 1984, FBI agents apprehended Levasseur and his wife, Patricia Gros, near Deerfield, Ohio. The remaining members of UFF were captured shortly after. In March 1986, seven members of the UFF, including Levasseur and Manning, were convicted on conspiracy charges related to the bombings, and sentenced to lengthy jail terms. Levasseur was released from prison in November, 2004, but other members, such as Manning and Williams, remain in prison.
The United Freedom Front has not been responsible for a terrorist incident since 1984, and despite the release of its leader, Raymond Luc Levasseur, the group will most likely remain inactive.
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These data were collected for the Terrorism Knowledge Base® (TKB®), managed by the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) until March 2008. START has neither reviewed nor verified these data, but is presenting this information as a service to the homeland security community.
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