Financing the QAnon Queen of Canada
Detecting and disrupting the financing of conspiracy theory promoters
A few weeks ago, Mack Lamoureux over at Vice contacted me to discuss a story he’d been working on for some time about the so-called QAnon “Queen of Canada” (Romana Didulo) and how she’s been financing her activities. The article is a great read. What follows below are all my thoughts that didn’t make it into Mack’s story. And if you like this, don’t forget to subscribe and share the article! And if you don’t know what QAnon is, start here, and if you need to know more about Queen Romana, Wikipedia has a decent entry on her as well.
Why does Romana Didulo need money?
Romana Didulo uses money to travel across Canada, promoting her particular world view. Recently, she tried to arrest an entire police department in Peterborough, Ontario (that ended about as you’d expect). She usually travels in an RV, but also books hotel rooms for herself, her followers, and Vladimir Putin. She was also present at the Ottawa occupation. All of this travel costs money, and Didulo does not appear to have any source of income other than donations from her followers. And donate they do.