Former Navy sailor pleads guilty to federal charge in 2022 plot to attack Illinois naval station
A former US Navy sailor pleaded guilty to a federal charge accusing him of a 2022 plot to attack Naval Station Great Lakes in northern Illinois, according to a plea agreement unsealed Thursday.
Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, allegedly devised a plan involving Iranian actors to conduct an attack against the US to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, a general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who was killed by a US airstrike in 2020, according to court documents. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the US in 2019.
In November, Pang pleaded guilty in a Chicago federal court to conspiring to and attempting to willfully injure and destroy national defense material, national defense premises, and national defense utilities – namely Naval Station Great Lakes – with the intent to injure, interfere with, and obstruct the national defense of the US, the Department of Justice said in a news release Thursday.
Pang enlisted in the United States Navy and began his training at Naval Station Great Lakes around February 2022, according to court documents.
Pang faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. CNN has reached out to Pang's attorney for comment.
Pang is alleged to have communicated in 2021 with an individual in Colombia about potentially assisting him with his plan, the Department of Justice said.
Accorting to court records, an undercover FBI employee posing as an affiliate of the Iranian armed forces later contacted the person in Colombia about conducting an attack, and the individual put the employee in touch with Pang, who at the time in 2022 was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes.
Pang then shared with the individual in Colombia possible targets for the attack, including Naval Station Great Lakes and other locations in the Chicago area, and the individual in turn shared them with another person working with the FBI who was posing as an associate of the undercover FBI employee, according to court documents.
Pang and the individual in Colombia agreed to help the undercover FBI employee and his associates conduct an attack in the US, court records state. They had also exchanged messages in which they discussed demanding a payment of $1 million for their assistance with the plot, according to the documents.
Then, in the fall of 2022, Pang on three occasions met with one of the individuals undercover, the DOJ said.
During meetings in Lake Bluff, Illinois – as the plot coalesced into an attack on the Naval Station – Pang displayed photos and videos on his phone of multiple locations inside the Naval Station, according to court documents. Pang asked the undercover FBI employee whether he was 'looking for max damage,' and the employee said that he was.
After being asked by the FBI employee, Pang also agreed to provide two US military uniforms for operatives to wear inside the base during the attack, and a cell phone that could be used as a test for a detonator, court documents say. The FBI employee gave Pang $2,000 in return.
During an October meeting, the FBI employee gave Pang $3,000 as payment for Pang and the other individual's assistance in the operation. Pang sent the individual $1,000 of the $3,000 he had received, according to court documents.
The FBI Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the case, with assistance from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, according to the news release.
Pang is detained without bond and is scheduled to be sentenced by a federal district court judge at a later date, according to the news release.
CNN's Jamiel Lynch contributed to this report.
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