Standing on the ledge of a broken window next to a Beverly Hills esthetician with mascara running from the tear gas, a bearded man with wild blue eyes made an appeal to the crowd surrounding the U.S. Capitol. “Last chance, who wants to make history with me? Who’s a man? Who’s a patriot? I’m going into Capitol Hill by myself — who wants to man the fuck up? Patriots, let’s do this right fucking now!” he shouted into a megaphone. Returning the bullhorn to the esthetician, he entered the Capitol through the broken window.
Inside, in an upturned conference room, he led a group of rioters out of the room and into an adjoining hallway, where he kicked the door of another conference room several times to help open it. He and several others rifled through papers and ransacked the room, before leaving the Capitol with a souvenir gas mask. The bearded man now stands charged of conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, tampering with documents or proceedings, obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, theft of government property, destruction of government property, and entering a restricted building. His whereabouts are currently unknown. The Department of Justice declined to comment.
Yet it wasn’t his Duck Dynasty-esque facial hair or his center-stage role that captured international attention in the weeks after the attempted insurrection. Instead, it was the unassuming red scarf he wore that day — by any measure, a smart wardrobe decision for D.C. winters. But to some eagle-eyed Swedes, the scarf had special meaning. The neckwear bore the name of a small Swedish town, Skelleftea, which gave away fewer than 1,000 of the scarves to former residents in 2017 as part of an annual tradition. For citizens of the historically neutral country, the presence of the scarf on a Jan. 6 rioter raised the chilling prospect that a fellow Swede may have attempted to interfere in the American transition of power.
The small Swedish hamlet of Skelleftea, where 1,000 scarves of the type worn by Belosic on Jan. 6 were given to residents in 2017. Adobe Stock
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In the absence of a name, the ad hoc online community of amateur researchers dedicated to identifying participants in the riot tagged the man #SwedishScarf. And try as they might, even after identifying him as a member of a group of right-wing activists in Los Angeles, his real name eluded them. Even when the Department of Justice indicted Swedish Scarf and two other members of the activist group in November 2021, in an unusual move, prosecutors redacted his name. The DOJ declined to comment.
The redaction has allowed the real identity of Swedish Scarf to remain a mystery — until now. His name is Paul Belosic, and far from Sweden’s subarctic winters and universal health care, the 49-year-old actually grew up among the palm trees and celebrities of Los Angeles, according to interviews with a dozen friends and former associates, several of whom requested that their names be withheld out of safety concerns. They describe Belosic’s turn toward extremism as “heartbreaking” and puzzle over how a onetime George Bush-hating liberal could vote for Donald Trump, let alone participate in an attempted insurrection at his behest. But they also tell the story of an aspiring actor whose career stagnated; who grew up surrounded by Hollywood’s wealth and fame, but who failed to make it onto the red carpet himself. Instead, he worked jobs in service of L.A.’s celebrities and plutocrats, relegated to driving their cars at tony establishments like the Beverly Hills Hotel and Malibu Beach Inn and serving them drinks at The Hollywood Athletic Club.
After trying his luck as an actor in New York, Belosic returned to his hometown, Los Angeles, and worked at The Hollywood Athletic Club, serving drinks in the bar. Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Belosic’s lifelong rebellious spirit and skepticism toward authority metastasized over the years, they say, leading him to increasingly radical beliefs. This came to a head in 2020 amid the backlash against racial justice protests and COVID-19 public health safety measures. At a weekly conservative rally held in Beverly Hills, Belosic — going by the pseudonym Jeff — fell in with a group of right-wing activists who hated masks, loved Trump and came to see the 2020 election as stolen. Members of the group made plans to travel to Washington, D.C., to “violently remove traitors,” according to prosecutors and a former member of the group.
But as their failure became more apparent in the hours and days after the attempted insurrection, Belosic vanished, leaving behind his friends, family, alleged co-conspirators and — among the broken glass and debris of the Capitol’s west entrance — a red-and-white scarf from Sweden.
Belosic (center, in cap) at a protest against COVID restrictions at the Westfield Century City mall, where he accosted shoppers and argued with workers wearing the masks that were required by health officials. Sam Braslow
Jan. 6 was not Belosic’s first encounter with riot police. In sharp contrast to his eventual turn toward far-right politics, he attended a protest and concert outside the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. The headlining group, Rage Against the Machine, opened their set across the street from the Staples Center as the convention’s marquee speaker, then-President Bill Clinton, strode onstage inside.
“Our democracy has been hijacked!” band frontman Zack de la Rocha screamed to a crowd of 8,000. The band’s message that night was less liberal or conservative than generally anti-establishment. “Our electoral freedoms in this country are over so long as it’s controlled by corporations! We are not going to allow these streets to be taken over by the Democrats or the Republicans!”
After the performance, police clashed with protesters and bystanders, firing tear gas and rubber bullets and swinging batons, according to reports. Much of the media attention at the time focused on allegations of excessive force by law enforcement (the City of Los Angeles eventually paid out more than $5 million to settle claims of abuses).
“They came in with tear gas, they came in with rubber bullets, shooting at us,” Belosic told ABC News at the time. “There was nowhere to go here. Everything was blocked off. It was chaos.” Belosic told The Village Voice that he and several other demonstrators were struck with batons by police blocks away from the protest zone. “We had a right to be here,” he said.
Given this history of protest, friends of Belosic say they were surprised — but hardly shocked — when they stumbled on photos and videos of him at the Capitol, asserting his rights as he saw them. “This is Concord and Lexington, 1775!” he yelled to the advancing crowd on the Capitol steps. “If we lose our freedom here, we lose it all!”
By coincidence, days after the riot (but before learning about Belosic’s role), Bianca White was chatting with her friend and her husband at her home in Los Angeles about how long it had been since they had seen Belosic, a nearly lifelong friend whom she had met in middle school. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he stormed the Capitol,” she recalls joking. Belosic had long fostered a reputation for ending up in places he had no place being — typically to comical, charming effect. He once talked his way into a star-studded Oscar party while wearing sweatpants, White recalls. He had danced onstage with Iggy Pop, another friend says. Others recall that he even made it onto the stage at Coachella in 2009 to hand a guitar to Paul McCartney.
“It seemed like he was living for those moments. A little bit for the story, the excitement of it, but also the telling of it after. I think a lot of young men are like that, but the point is, you hope that one would grow out of that,” one friend says.
But when, months after the attack, a mutual friend sent White an Instagram post of footage from the Capitol, she couldn’t laugh it off. “It broke my heart in so many ways,” she says.
Belosic could not be reached for comment. Belosic’s mother declined to participate in an interview, but told me, “I have not had any contact with him since before Jan. 6. I do not know where he is or what he is doing.”
As far back as elementary school, Belosic showed signs of a rebellious nature and a questioning of authority. His journey from a liberal George Bush hater to a participant in an attempted insurrection is “heartbreaking” to those who knew him. Friends and former associates describe him as an aspiring actor whose career never quite took off. Growing up in Los Angeles, surrounded by wealth and fame, he worked jobs serving the elite before falling in with a group of right-wing activists who opposed pandemic safety measures and believed in a stolen election. His turn towards extremism and his involvement in the events of January 6th shocked many who knew him, but he had always had a knack for finding himself in unexpected places. His past experiences with protests and clashes with law enforcement set the stage for his role in the attempted insurrection. However, many who knew Belosic hope that he will eventually find a path away from extremism and towards a more positive future.
