A BRIT conspiracy theorist who held his family in a cellar for nine months planned a network of subterranean lairs for each of his kids, it is alleged.
Holocaust denier Tom Landon was arrested by police on Sunday after reportedly attacking social workers with pepper spray.
A woman and six kids were discovered languishing in a wine cellar under the remote Austrian property, along with several guns.
Officials believe the family lived in a network of tunnels underneath the tiny village of Obritz, some 60 miles north of capital Vienna, near the border with the Czech Republic.
It has now emerged the 54-year-old "wanted a cellar for each child," according to the village's deputy mayor Erich Greil.
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Speaking to The Sunday Times, he added: "He's not from here and has only been [in] Obritz for a short time."
Another local resident told The Times: “He also wanted to buy our cellar last year but nobody really knew anything about what was going on.”
It is reported the eight had been living in the cellar for the past nine months but were previously living in London.
Greil said the Brit, until recently, is reported to have worked in IT back in the UK capital.
Cops are trying to trace records on the children, none of whom were registered in Austria.
Government officials were tipped off by neighbours, who claimed they had heard children's voices coming from the building, which had a number of CCTV cameras.
However, whenever anyone approached the building, it went suddenly quiet.
After Landon allegedly attacked the two officials with pepper spray during a routine inspection, cops were called.
When they stormed the cellar, they found Landon barricaded inside along with a 40-year-old woman and six children, aged between seven months and five years.
Several guns were also discovered in the cellar, which had been fitted with doors and windows but was deemed unfit for human habitation.
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Both Landon and the woman were released after being questioned by authorities, but all of the children living at the property have reportedly been taken into care.
He also wanted to buy our cellar last year but nobody really knew anything about what was going on
Neighbour
He is believed to be a "doomsday prepper", where one builds their life around preparing for a "major disaster or cataclysmic event".
Landon had reportedly self-published a number of books denouncing Austria's government.
One of his books, Rote Sau, meaning Red Sow and published in 2019, gave his address as East Finchley in north London.
Other book titles in German translated as The Judas Principle and Dirty Justice.
He told cops he planned to stay in the cellar, which he reportedly bought through a British company, for a day or two longer.
Landon is listed at Companies House as being the director of two firms, one of which has since been dissolved.
An Austrian police source said: "With Interpol we are working to identify the children who we believe may have been born in the UK.
"The man and his wife, who is British, had certainly lived in the UK and had connections there."
Landon has ties to the Austrian branch of the far-right German Reichsburger movement, which embraces a number of conspiracy theories.
The right-wing extremist movement believes that the German empire still exists as it did prior to World War II.
Austria's Kronen Zeitung newspaper reported: "The presumed Reich citizen is known to officials, was firmly convinced of bizarre conspiracy theories and had apparently completely ‘drifted away’ since the Ukraine war."
One local resident said: "Of course we knew the suspect. He also wanted to buy our cellar last year but nobody really knew anything about what was going on."
Landon is also said to have written a musical about Austrian rock star Falco, known for his 1985 hit Rock Me Amadeus.
Falco was killed in a car crash in the Dominican Republic and Landon, who was living in the Caribbean nation at the time, claimed to have found the body and said that the singer's true cause of death was covered up.
Comparisons have been drawn between Landon's case and the sickening crimes of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who kept his daughter Elisabeth locked in a cellar for 24 years, during which time she was forced to have his seven children.
However, there is no reason to believe the children, in this case, had been mistreated, said Greil, who saw the family walking around in the village two weeks earlier.
