Redemption movement

The redemption movement consists of supporters of an American conspiracy theory called Redemption theory, which involves claims that when the U.S. government abandoned the gold standard in 1933, it pledged its citizens as collateral so that it could borrow money. Other similar theories claim this collateral action happened in 1913 with the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. The movement also asserts that common citizens can gain access to funds in secret accounts using obscure procedures and regulations. The Redemption movement is related to the sovereign citizen movement.

According to the theory, the government created a fictitious person (or "straw man") corresponding to each newborn citizen with bank accounts initially holding $630,000. The theory further holds that through obscure procedures under the Uniform Commercial Code, a citizen can "reclaim" the straw man and write checks against its accounts.

There have been many well-publicized convictions of citizens attempting to take advantage of this theory. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regards the instructors and promoters of Redemption schemes as fraudsters while the Internal Revenue Service has included the "straw man" claim in its list of frivolous positions that may result in the imposition of a $5,000 penalty when used as the basis for an inaccurate tax return.

The Redemption movement is based on a theory developed in the 1980s by Roger Elvick, who has been called a "founding father" of the modern redemption movement. The theory is, in part, that for every citizen's birth certificate issued in the U.S. since the 1936 Social Security Act, the government deposits $630,000 in a hidden bank account linked to the newborn American and administered by a Jewish cabal. Redemptionists assert that by completing certain legal maneuvers and filing a series of government forms, the actual person may entitle himself or herself to the $630,000 held in the name of the doppelganger persona created for him or her at birth, and may then access these government funds using "sight drafts". The government views these sight drafts as "rubber checks" and the entire scheme as fraudulent. The federal government has convicted the practitioners of fraud and conspiracy.

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