FBI and NYPD claim to have thwarted planned bombing of Federal Reserve in New York City

Get short URL

Published time: October 17, 2012 19:34
Edited time: October 18, 2012 00:48

The entrance Federal Reserve Bank of New York, located at 33 Liberty Street.(AFP Photo / Andrew Burton)

Tags

Crime, FBI, Police, Terrorism, USA

The FBI has arrested a 21-year-old Bangladeshi national they say intended to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in Lower Manhattan this morning, only a few blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood.

The man, identified as Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, is reported to have conspired with undercover officers working for both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York Police Department in an effort to blow up the bank branch, but local network NBC 4 says the public was never at risk. On Wednesday afternoon, he was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaeda, Reuters reports.

Authorities allegedly provided the man with fake explosives and assisted him in constructing the foiled plot after online posts he is thought to have authored referenced jihad. The complaint also includes quotes attributed to the suspect that reference former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Nafis was arrested early Wednesday after he attempted to detonate what he thought was a 1,000 pound bomb inside of a vehicle near the New York Federal Reserve Bank on Liberty Street in the city’s financial district.

A criminal complaint filed in court on Wednesday suggests that Nafis traveled to the United States in January with the purpose of waging a terrorist attack. The document alleges that he had considered other targets before settling on the Fed branch, and even debated harming an unnamed, high-ranking US official.

"Attempting to destroy a landmark building and kill or maim untold numbers of innocent bystanders is about as serious as the imagination can conjure. The defendant faces appropriately severe consequences. It is important to emphasize that the public was never at risk in this case, because two of the defendant's 'accomplices' were actually an FBI source and an FBI undercover agent. The FBI continues to place the highest priority on preventing acts of terrorism," FBI Acting Assistant Director Mary Galligan tells reporters, WABC News reports.

Although the latest incident is the most recent attempted terror plot hatched at least in part by the FBI, it is far from the first. Months earlier in May, FBI agents arrested five men from the Cleveland, Ohio area that they said were orchestrating a plan to bomb the Valley View Bridge, a 4,150-foot roadway that stretches across the Cuyahoga River. In that case, authorities argued that the accused men expressed “intent on using violence to express their ideological views,” although the idea of bombing the bridge was admittedly introduced to them by an undercover informant working on behalf of the agency.

“I could show you” how to bring down the bridge, the informant told members of the alleged terror ring after infiltrating their circle. The source then offered to help the group purchase explosives.

An report done last year by Mother Jones and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkley revealed that the FBI has as many as 15,000 undercover agents working within the bureau. Of the roughly 500 prosecutions in recent years relating to terrorism charges, the FBI used informants for about half of them, the report suggested. Of 158 of prosecutions that ended in convictions, around one-third relied on direct involvement from federal agent provocateurs.

Comments (79)

juda 21.10.2012 19:02

Where did the posted comment of 'Enlightened Soul' go who left an email address yesterday? Assets got him already --or does this system just miss some when you go back to track, the next day? IT IS QUITE OBVIOUS, ISN'T IT, what everybody has written in two articles as to what is thought of the U.S.A. 's 'policing system'? There is a foreign boy out there who may be very innocent, and very scared and confused. There is a Mom and Dad and Sister and Brother across the waters who, I suspect, have not stopped crying. Imagine something like this happening to you or yours in another country whose language and network of family you do not have. Imagine, just imagine. Gawd! There is NOT enough good circumstantial evidence, as per press, to hold this boy, without reasonable bail! He should have full allowance to speak with parents or surrogates parent's agree to. He should not be interrogated with out an interpretor with high English and Bengaldeshi language skills! HIS PARENTS should select his ATTORNEY, NOT the COURTS!!! Gawd, Federal Courts are well fixed. His Parents should have the right to be sure no DRUGS are used on him. The PATROIT ACT has got to go to the trash, along with a few other things. My gawd a young lonely kid without our language being coerced and coached by an 'undercover' is just about one of the sickest thingts this 73 year old has heard in her life! If you travel all the news stories you see the holes as clear as crystal. Also search on http://bd24news.com/ ....it is the Bangladesh paper in the Capitol city Nafis is from. Do archives to get back stories. U.S.A.ans have just got to stand up. It's getting worse every day!!!! Your kid may be next!

Undo

juda 21.10.2012 16:49

It's all pretty sick isn't it. There are so many holes in this story it wouldn't even qualify for swiss cheese. Like the Colorado Massecre --the picture Dad holds up does not look like the 'movie star' pic the press put out. Also the boy's Dad is a V.P. at the Central Bank in the capitol city of Bangladesh, -----where in May, in Bangladesh a monsoon of both oil and gas were found, and it is nationalized, not privatized. Oh dear, can't have that. http://bd news24.com/ is the Bangladesh paper in English. Can't even begin to imagine what is going on here. I have enormous compassion for his Family. Enormous. Facebook, evidently, is the evidence. Are certain Web Sites becoming spy agencies? I have questions about the boy being 'coached' through all this. A fellow student at Southeast Missouri, an older man, physics, said he was shy, lonely, religious, especially as to peace and non-violence -and nice. His best friend back home said he wanted to be a businessman. His Dad said he was studying Bus. Admin. What's going on that a kid from the Capital City of a couple of million ends up in a red neck state like Missouri, supposedly studying cypersecurity? And then at a college (private) on Manhatten studying computers? How did he negotiate his way to school here? Who helped him? Who was his contact? I hate all this. How did he do so much in such a short amt. of time? 21---science has hard smoking gun evidence that the physical part of the brain does not develop for full adulthood decision and discretion and emotional maturity until between 21 and 26 (males later) and we are putting them in prisons and having them kill and torture and putting the blame on them? 1000's upon 1000's of global kids are being trained as 'assets' and above....and many getting screwed and caught up in stuff, --so the conspirists tell us. How do we find out? What do we do? Much and most of this training, supposedly is in US, on our dollar. Blood on our hands?

Undo

brownsnapper (unregistered) 19.10.2012 19:40

The FBI: A purpose looking for a reason [Huh? Whatdid[s]hesay?]

Undo

View all comments (79)