Leaked FIU Conservative Students’ WhatsApp Chat Prompts Criminal Probe and Fallout for Miami-Dade GOP Leadership

Leaked messages trigger scrutiny of campus political leadership

A leaked WhatsApp group chat involving conservative student organizers at Florida International University (FIU) has prompted a criminal investigation and raised questions about oversight within local political youth networks in Miami-Dade County.

The chat, created in fall 2025 and intended as a coordinating space for conservative students, included repeated racist slurs, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ language, and misogynistic insults, alongside discussions of campus political organizing. The messages also included graphic, violent statements targeting Black people. Portions of the chat’s content referred to white-supremacist and Nazi-adjacent themes, including a renaming of the group to a phrase participants described as tied to “Agartha,” a mythic concept that has circulated in extremist subcultures.

Who was in the group chat

Participants included individuals identified as holding leadership roles across local and campus Republican-aligned organizations, including:

• Abel Carvajal, identified as secretary of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party and a law student at FIU, who created the chat.
• Ian Valdes, identified in the messages as a campus leader affiliated with Turning Point USA at FIU.
• Dariel Gonzalez, identified in the messages as a campus College Republicans leader at the time.
• William Bejerano, identified as a participant who posted some of the most extreme racist language and violent content.

Law enforcement review and FIU response

FIU confirmed that the leaked chat logs are part of an ongoing criminal investigation. In response to questions about related records, the university’s police department declined to release details, citing the protected status of criminal investigative information.

The logs reviewed by miami.news show that the chat blended operational discussions about political events with derogatory language targeting multiple groups. The existence of deleted messages by the chat’s creator complicates efforts to determine the full scope of participation and moderation decisions inside the group.

Statements and accountability questions

Carvajal acknowledged creating the group and said he did not see some of the most extreme content when it was posted, stating he would have removed a participant had he seen it at the time. He also said he had deleted messages, describing some as non-substantive content.

The episode adds to broader tensions within Republican youth and activist pipelines that have faced repeated controversies nationally over extremist rhetoric in private messaging channels. In Miami-Dade, the immediate issue is more specific: how individuals with formal party titles and campus leadership roles operated in an environment where racist and antisemitic rhetoric circulated alongside official political organizing.

FIU has indicated the matter remains under criminal review, and the university has not detailed potential disciplinary outcomes while the investigation is ongoing.

As of March 5, 2026, the investigation remains open, and the full set of potential institutional or political consequences has not been publicly resolved.