The Kaweah Indian Nation, Inc. was a fraudulent organization that falsely claimed to be an unrecognized tribe from the 1980s to the early 2000s. It appropriated the name of the Kaweah people but had no legitimate connection to any historical Native American group. The organization applied for

federal recognition This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes are legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United States.

in the 1980s, but its petition was denied. The organization became known for fraudulent activities, including selling fake tribal memberships to undocumented Mexican nationals under the false pretense that such documents conferred citizenship in the United States. Its leader, Malcolm Webber, who referred to himself as 'Grand Chief Thunderbird IV,' was convicted on six felony charges related to the scheme and sentenced to prison in 2008.

Petition for federal recognition

The Kaweah Indian Nation, based in California at the time, petitioned the US federal government for

. In 1985, their petition was denied. The proposed finding stated: "The Kaweah Indian, Inc. is a recently formed group that did not exist prior to 1980. ... The KIN is primarily an urban Indian group in Porterville, California, which has no relation to the aboriginal Kaweah Indians and did not evolve from a tribal entity...."

Nonprofit

The group formed a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

Porterville, California Porterville is a city at the base of Southern Sierra Nevada mountains on the eastern side of San Joaquin Valley, in Tulare County, California, United States. It is part of the Visalia-Porterville metropolitan statistical area. Serving as the ...

, but their nonprofit status was revoked in 2011 not failing to file taxes for three consecutive years. The group also formed a nonprofit in

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the List of cities in Kansas, most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397, ...

, in 2005 but dissolved in 2008.

External links

Man charged in alleged sale of tribal status to immigrants
''L.A. Times''

References

{{reflist 1980 establishments in California Non-profit organizations based in Kansas Unrecognized tribes in the United States